West Carrollton marketing, selling vacant properties for new river district project

A river district is being proposed along the Great Miami River in West Carrollton off of East Central Avenue. The proposal includes new development, a whitewater park and riverfront housing. In the foreground is the vacant former Roberds Carrollton Plaza. JIM NOELKER/STAFF

Credit: JIM NOELKER

Credit: JIM NOELKER

A river district is being proposed along the Great Miami River in West Carrollton off of East Central Avenue. The proposal includes new development, a whitewater park and riverfront housing. In the foreground is the vacant former Roberds Carrollton Plaza. JIM NOELKER/STAFF

West Carrollton is marketing a group of properties near the Great Miami River, acreage it hopes to sell to businesses and developers as part of a planned river district.

The city owns 25 acres within the district, most of it vacant land, according to Mike Lucking, the city’s economic development director. That district includes the old Roberds property near I-75′s Exit 47 and extending southwest along Central Avenue and Dixie Drive.

West Carrollton City Council approved a measure Tuesday allowing it to sell three quarters of an acre at 1100 East Dixie, on the southeast corner of Dixie and Manchester Road, to GOC Realco LLC for a new Dunkin’ restaurant.

“We have a purchase contract (for them) to purchase three quarters of an acre for $500,000,” Lucking said Wednesday.

The deal is the first city-owned land sold in an area designated for a multiphase, mixed-used development just west of the Exit 47 interchange. Located adjacent to a planned whitewater park, the river district is designed to include service retail, multiple restaurants and a small watercraft marina, plus a hotel, medical office building, 26 high-end townhome condominiums and a 214-unit apartment project.

Sale of the land is “very significant,” Lucking said.

“First of all, it’s the type of use that we want to have at that location, so that’s substantial itself,” he said. “Having a quality user like Dunkin’, prior to even really going all-out in terms of our marketing effort ... it demonstrates confidence in the site, so we’re very pleased about that.”

Lucking said the city has been “purposely doing an assemblage” of the properties over the years.

“I would say we were opportunistic,” he said. “It’s kind of taking charge of your own destiny because we knew the type of environment that we wanted to have there.”

The deal for the Dixie Drive site comes less than a month after West Carrollton City Council signed off with Dillin LLC and Woodard Development for “master development plan requirements,” including a marketing timeline.

Those requirements include a schedule for the river district. Design of it is slated to run through August. Construction of public improvements south of Dixie is set for this September through March 2024 with improvements north of Dixie planned to follow from March 2024 to September 2024.

Marketing of properties within the site will launch later this month at the International Council of Shopping Centers’ annual convention in Las Vegas, said Larry Dillin, president and CEO of Dillin LLC.

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