Arson suspected in Dayton’s Garden Station park, officials say

A fire that destroyed a shed Wednesday at the Garden Station community garden and art park may have been set intentionally, officials said.

The fire started just before 7 a.m., and the shed burned to the ground. It was in an area of the park where people in the neighborhood frequently walk through the park, located at Fourth Street and Wayne Avenue in Dayton, officials said, noting that there were no injuries.

Some nearby plants were destroyed as well.

Garden Station leases its space from the city of Dayton, and in recent months the city announced plans for Kentucky developer to redevelop that area to make it an extension of the Oregon Historic District.

“The city understands the uniqueness and community efforts that went into creating and maintaining the space and would like to see them continue in a new permanent location,” Shelley Dickstein, Dayton’s city manager in March.

The Dayton Circus Creative Collective, a group of local artists, helped establish Garden Station in 2008.

In a social media post in March, Lisa Helm, the garden’s founder, asked the community to recommend possible new sites and whether people were willing to volunteer.

“There will never be another space quite like Garden Station, but we can continue some of our community work in a different venue if we must,” the group said.

A group of volunteers cleaned up what was an abandoned rail yard that suffered from decades of neglect and had become a popular dumping site and ecological headache. The vacant property also had become a defacto homeless camp.

Volunteers used donations and scavenged materials to create a green space with elevated plots, planting beds and gardens to grow vegetables and flowers.

The garden benefited many urban dwellers who lack yards, including residents at the Cannery Lofts and in nearby South Park. The garden has murals, artwork and a hoop house.

But in mid-March Dayton commissioners approved transferring the Garden Station property and the vacant industrial building across the street at 210 Wayne Ave. to City Properties Group, a firm based in Louisville, Ky.

City Properties Group plans on converting the Wayne Avenue property into 40 loft-style apartments with restaurant and retail space on the ground floor.

The firm wants to redevelop that area to create Oregon East, a lifestyle district that connects to and expands the Oregon District.

Garden Station signed a lease with the city in 2008 and then renewed it in 2010. That lease ended in in December, but they were allowed to continuing using it through this month.

Supporters of the garden attended the Dayton City Commission Wednesday, but the city and the developer said they will move ahead with the plan to redevelop the area.

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