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Writer and editor Home > Blogs > Brain Droppings > Archives > 2008 > May > 17 > Entry
Cool new stuff coming downtown
Our “Urban Nights” prowling on Friday led us toward a few new things on the horizon for downtown.
First, and coolest, was the “Litehouse” environmentally friendly, eco-driven modular home that’s been raised just in the last week on what is soon to be a former parking lot along Patterson Avenue near Ice Avenue.
The single-family home was open for visitation, and even in its rough, unfinished state, you could tell it would be a great place to live. It’s about 1700 sq feet over four stories with a big open shaft plunging right through the center that ties the space together and gives it a modern, airy feel. The windows look out on the downtown skyline, on Fifth-Third Field and toward the other apartment and condo units in the area.
In fact, this is quick becoming a hot spot for new residential dwelling, with the Cooper Lofts nearby, the Ice House lofts right across the parking lot, Cooper Place next door and a new development planned for the grassy lot across First Street. The developers expect to build 39 of the “Litehouse” models downtown, and also are trying to put them up in West Carrollton and Kettering. Very neat.
Right across the street from all this, in the no-longer-empty storefront between Miami-Jacobs and the Southern Belle, is a new blues club on the way. They had an informal opening with ass-kickin’ blues by Michael Locke and his band, and they call the place the Riff Raff Club — expecting to open in August.
It’s a small, comfortable room that takes full advantage of the rough-hewn, bare-brick nature of the building, and the sound was good. Let’s see … Canal Street Tavern, the Belle, and now this place, all in a row and right across from your new environmentally friendly townhouse! Downtown? Really?
As a PS, there was toooooo much to see during Urban Nights … which is not at all a complaint! We got to see DVAC’s new exhibition and also stopped by to peek into the new Dayton Dirt Collective teen club on Third Street, which looked interesting and was quite crowded.
Courthouse Square was packed with music and a lively, happy crowd. We started our evening with a stop to visit our good friends over at our favorite downtown bar, the Moraine Embassy. Just walking around, surrounded by folks out to have a good downtown time on a fine spring evening, was lovely.
As a final side note: I’m starting to have the sense that the main new development activity downtown, and there is a fair amount of it, is happening more at the edges than at the very center. For what it’s worth. Will the good stuff happen on the fringe and work its way into the middle, or will it keep moving outward, expanding the “boundary” of what we’ve long considered to be downtown Dayton? Dunno, just asking.
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