CJ President Dan Meixner said the school’s 15- to 20-year master plan has called for an expansion of its campus where possible. “That property became available at the end of 2020, and so we made the decision to acquire it,” he said Tuesday.
The purchase was supported by CJ’s benefactors, who supported the purchase with a gift, Meixner said. He declined to say how much that gift was, but it was enough to allow the school to buy the property without financing.
Since January, CJ students have had lunch there daily, giving the school room to practice social distancing. The school is putting together a group to explore other short-term and long-term uses for the site, the president added.
“It’s a wonderful event space, once it’s been transformed to better represent CJ and our community,” he said. “There are opportunities for student events, for alumni events, and for other uses as continue to activate our campus master plan.”
The school has been an active property purchaser and developer in its area for years, building practice football fields and Roger Glass Stadium, at the corner of Longworth and Eaker streets. The school also built a tennis court complex along Ludlow as well as a former Dayton Daily News Eaker Street warehouse more than a decade ago, transforming it into a student conditioning center.
The deed tied to this latest purchase identifies the grantors or sellers as the John R. Dixon and John R. Dixon Jr. family limited partnerships.
Dixon may be known locally for the collection of rare cars and other collectibles he kept at the eye-catching “Taj Ma Garaj” building at 300 S. Perry. That collection sold for $5.7 million at an auction in 2019.
Dixon was well known in the local car enthusiast and collector community, former Dayton Daily News photographer Skip Peterson told the newspaper in 2019. Dixon died in 2013.
“He was a passionate car collector and one of the best human beings I’d ever met. He had something called Taj Kruizers where he used the cars to raise money for local children’s hospitals and Ronald McDonald house. He was a very philanthropic guy,” Peterson told the Dayton Daily News.
The building has been used for CJ class reunions in the past.
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