As the city’s community and downtown development coordinator, Crockett is tasked with filling the ‘live’ part of the ‘live, work and play’ mantra embraced in the city’s 2008 Downtown Strategic Plan.
Transforming second and third floor spaces in buildings along Main and Detroit streets into housing is listed as a goal in the plan to add “24 hour vibrancy into the area and provide for better economic growth of downtown.”
Wanting people to live downtown is far easier than making it happen, Crockett said.
“We look at Miamisburg and Dayton and say ‘that’s what we want to be when we grow up’,” she said. “It’s been incredibly slow.”
But Crockett said momentum is building.
The owners of many of the roughly 10 buildings in historic downtown Xenia are interested in converting spaces previously used for office and retail in to housing units.
Interest in downtowns
Sandy Gudorf, president of the Dayton Downtown Partnership, said national trends show more young professional and empty-nesters calling downtowns home.
In the 1990s, the number of downtown households increased by 10 percent, according to Washington D.C.-based Brookings Institution examination of 44 large cities.
More than 2,000 people currently live in downtown Dayton where there are 969 owned or rented units. There were 518 such units in 2000.
At mid-year 2011, Gudorf’s office placed downtown Dayton’s occupancy rate at 94 percent. “That is significant,” she said. “I am confident that if we had more housing we’d be able to fill it.”
While Dayton as a whole lost 15 percent of its population during the last decade, the 2010 U.S. Census showed that downtown and the Oregon District added 567 residents, a 17.2 percent increase.
Gudorf said the city has worked aggressively with developers to find creative solutions that have turned former retail spaces, warehouses and other building in to housing units.
“It is challenging, but on the other side, these kinds of units, units with that urban loft feeling, are in high demand,” she said. “Where else can you walk out your front door and you are just minutes away from parks, coffee shops and performing art theaters?”
Work in progress in smaller communities
Troy resident David Fair said there is a market for downtown housing in smaller communities.
He has lived 13 years on the second and third floors above his downtown Troy shop, David Fair on the Square. Fair can count 25 to 30 people who live within a block of Public Square.
“I know most of them,” he said.
“You’re instantly a part of all that is happening downtown — all the festivals, all the parades. You are in the heart of the energy of the city — all the restaurants. But when the sidewalks close up it’s also very quiet.”
Katie Frank, Miamisburg’s downtown development coordinator, said increasing downtown living doesn’t happen overnight.
Miamisburg has long had some residents living downtown, but an emphasis on downtown living started only a decade ago after downtown merchants began to host regular events to draw crowds.
“Now that focus is shifting. How do we get people down here all the time and not just for events?” she said. Miamisburg has a mix of older units and newly renovated ones. With rents ranging from $300 to $1,000 a month, the downtown has 40 to 50 housing units and a 75 percent occupancy rate.
“We have the businesses. We have the river. We have the bike trail,” she said.
Revitalizing Xenia
The city recently has used some of the $1.8 million it was awarded from various grants to improve the appearance of its downtown through a facade loan program, public parking lot improvements, signs and other projects.
Crockett said housing downtown is an important part of the revitalization efforts.
Officials believe there are about 30 possible housing units in historic downtown.
An intern is working with the Revitalization Committee, a volunteer non-profit group, to create a database that includes the location and square footage of possible living spaces and current downtown housing occupancy rates.
A rough economic climate has complicated an already complex process that will require finding financing and maneuvering around building code issues related to fire escapes and sprinklers systems, Crockett said.
Matthew E. Arnovitz, owner of the real estate brokerage company Arnovitz & Associates, said he would love to have residential tenants in the upper floors of three of four buildings he owns on East Detroit and Main.
He already has three low rent apartments in one of his buildings, 63 South Detroit St.
The conversion of 37 to 41 E. Main St., 75 E. Main and would be expensive and require higher rent.
“People don’t want to pay the increased rent to compensate for conversion. I can’t do that for a rent of $300 a month.”
Still, Arnovitz said the revitalization of Xenia’s downtown is possible.
“I’d like to see the downtown be vibrant,” he said. “We have to get our second and third floors viable to fill the downtown marketplace.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2384 or arobinson@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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