DaytonDailyNews.com

DAYTON — A week after the final wave of employees moved, Cox Ohio Publishing Media Center opened its doors Tuesday to community leaders and dignitaries during a showing of the new state-of-the-art home to some 700 employees.

Guests toured the new headquarters of the Dayton Daily News, 1611 S. Main St., and the company's nine newspapers, plus more than a dozen Web sites.

Cox put $11 million into renovating the 50-year-old former NCR property — set on a 14-acre campus — into a modern hub of media operations.

"The building is just a skeleton of the company," said Doug Franklin, president and CEO of Cox Ohio Publishing and publisher of the Dayton Daily News. "The real heart and soul of any company is its employees."

Jay Smith, president of Cox Newspapers Inc. and a former reporter for the Dayton Daily News 36 years ago, described the day he first started working at the paper as "the best, happiest and luckiest moments" of his life.

During a recent visit to Dayton, Smith said his wife, Susan, was "knocked over when she saw this building."

Several speakers gave tribute to the former home of the Dayton Daily News at Fourth and Ludlow streets, describing it as a grand structure that, for more than 100 years, well served its employees and community.

With the new facility, 150 jobs came to Dayton, Franklin said. He credited the Atlanta-based Cox family and Cox Enterprises for the project.

"They really believe and have confidence in our company, in both our journalistic mission and our business mission," Franklin said. "Cox has invested more money in this area, in this newspaper, than any other newspaper our size in the country, by far."

Referring to the 1898 launching of the Dayton Daily News by former Gov. James M. Cox, Gov. Ted Strickland said, "Ohio has lots of great newspapers, but I think this newspaper is a very special newspaper and has a very special place in the history of Ohio."

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-9338 or

kmcallister@DaytonDailyNews.com.