“You’re building out what I consider the Tech Corridor,” said Jeff Graley, president of Mile Two. “If you make the connection from Stratacache all the way to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, down Third Street and Springfield (Street), you’re starting to build a lot of really, really good infrastructure that kind of gets back to Dayton’s roots in technology — being innovative and changing the game.”
Stratacache is a global developer of digital signage and customer-facing technology for fast food, retail and banking customers, a company anchored in the former Kettering Tower (now Stratacache Tower) at Second and Main streets.
Added Graley: “I think this is the next wave.”
Six-year-old Mile Two, which has about 120 employees, and Battle Sight, with seven employees, are no strangers to downtown and the increasingly busy Webster Station area. Both companies got their start in The Entrepreneurs’ Center.
“It was so important to us to stay in downtown Dayton, to be next to kind of the cool companies that are a couple of years ahead of us that we kind of look up, such as Mile Two and Tangram (Flex) and JJR’s (JJR Solutions LLC),” said Nicholas Ripplinger, president of Battle Sight.
He added: “Hats off to Jason’s whole entire team.”
Woodard confirmed in April 2020 that he intended to revitalize the six-floor, 55,000-square-foot building once known as the J.K. McIntire building, which was born as a wholesale grocery warehouse before it played a role in the Manhattan Project, the massive federal government/military effort to build the world’s first atomic bomb during World War II. The secret project used three floors of the building from 1946 to 1948.
Woodard acknowledged Friday that he first found the building in “pretty rough shape.” A tree was growing out of a corner of the structure and the remains of a “deconstructed church” could be found on the first floor, along with a hospital gurney and evidence of unauthorized residents.
Still, he called redeveloping the building a “labor of love.”
Credit: Tom Gilliam
Credit: Tom Gilliam
“None of it happens without great tenants,” Woodard said. “Great buildings that are empty don’t do any good.”
The building is nestled in an unmistakable local tech hub that Graley and others believe will continue to draw companies.
The “444 building” on East Second Street and the Avant Garde building — another Woodard project — are both nearby, as is the Tech Town business park off the river. Graley said Mile Two will retain space in the 444 building and at Tech Town.
The Dayton Dragons resume play at Day Air Ballpark Tuesday and a host of other destinations, from the library’s main branch to the newly redeveloped Arcade, are short walks from the Manhattan.
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