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Plans for former KeyBank building once included housing

Most of a North Main Street office tower will go dark in the first quarter of the new year.

Aegon USA Realty Advisors Inc., the owner of the office tower that once housed the local headquarters of KeyBank, plans to close all but the ground floor of the 14-story building near East Second Street.

Jim Noelker/Staff photographer Aegon USA Realty Advisors Inc., the owner of the office tower that once housed the local headquarters of KeyBank, plans to close all but the ground floor of the 14-story building near East Second Street.

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By Tim Tresslar, Staff Writer 8:32 PM Saturday, November 21, 2009

DAYTON —While most of the North Main Street office tower that once housed the local headquarters of KeyBank is slated to go dark in first quarter 2010, officials in the coming months will be looking for ways to bring the decades-old building back into use.

The current owner, Aegon USA Realty Advisors Inc., plans to close all but the ground floor of the 14-story office tower, which sits downtown near East Second Street, because the building costs more to operate than it generates in revenue. Gem Real Estate Group, the Dayton firm managing the property, is working to find new offices for tenants of who will be displaced from the upper floors of 32-34 N. Main St.

Aegon has not yet listed the building for sale or set an asking price for it, said David Dickerson, president and chief executive of Gem Real Estate.

“But they would entertain offers if anyone was interested in pursuing it,” Dickerson said.

Downtown Dayton Partnership President Sandy Gudorf said the next step is to determine the best future use for the building, first constructed in the 1920s as the Third National Bank and Trust building.

The building was one of 10 included in a strategic reuse plan in which local architects dreamed up new uses for underutilized buildings in downtown Dayton. The plan was an effort by the Downtown Dayton Partnership, the city of Dayton and 10 architecture firms, who did the work on a pro bono basis.

Dayton architects Levin Porter Associates Inc. suggested turning the building from mostly offices into a mix of retail, offices and housing. The plan called for floors seven through 14 to be devoted to housing, with a mixture of one- and two-bedroom units as well as two-story loft units. Gudorf said the plan was conceptual and included no cost estimates.

A lack of parking has been a challenge for the building, and both Gudorf and Dickerson said some solution to that problem needs to be found regardless of how the building is used.

Steve Budd, president and chief executive of CityWide Development, said that since the city doesn’t own the building, its future lies with its owner, be it Aegon or someone else. But he added that CityWide would be willing to work with the owners on tasks that accompany a reuse, such as cost projections, architectural reviews and assessing the building’s suitability as housing.

“It will be a building that we’ll spend some time thinking about,” he said.

KeyBank vacated the building and moved its Dayton headquarters to 10 W. Second St. in 2008.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7317 or ttresslar@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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