The city more than tripled the amount of money it received annually in government grants over the past five years, allowing it to maintain some services and upgrade infrastructure at the same time it was losing money from state funding cuts and a shrinking tax base, according to an analysis by the Dayton Daily News.

The city has brought in more than $325.3 million since launching an aggressive campaign in 2008 to qualify for more federal, state and local grants, records show. The city went from $16.7 million in grants in 2007 to $59.5 million in 2008 and maintained or exceeded that figure through 2011. In 2009, the city obtained more than $125 million in grants.

“These grants helped us move forward in tough times,” City Manager Tim Riordan said.

“I think every city has been doing this,” said John Blair, a Wright State University economics professor. The city’s increase in grants “sounds like a success to me.”

Grants — some requiring the city to match the funds — went to pay for a variety of projects, including police salaries, bridge work, repaved streets, airport projects and homeless programs.

More than one-third of the $325 million went to repairing and replacing the city’s aging infrastructure, according to hundreds of pages of documents obtained by the Dayton Daily News under the state’s public records act.

“Everywhere you look around downtown, (the city) has been working. They’ve repaved the streets, put in new sidwalks and curbs, lighting,” said Steve Seboldt, Downtown Priority Board chairman and a Realtor. “It looks a lot better.”

The city recently completed lighting under the U.S. 35 underpass at the south edge of downtown.

As a Realtor, Seboldt said he’s seen an “uptick in interest. I’m getting more calls from people wanting to find a place to live downtown. People feel more positive about downtown.”

Dan Kennedy, chairman of the Southeast Priority Board, has seen a lot of demolition in the poorest neighborhoods. He noted much of the grant money comes with restrictions on where and how it is used.

“What I haven’t seen is any significant stabilization of neighborhoods. I’ve just seen demolition,” Kennedy said.

At the other end of the city, David Greer, chairman of the Northwest Priority Board, had a similar complaint.

“The millions of dollars the city has received unfortunately has not gone to those things more equitable to the west side of Dayton. We have no retail stores … there has been some repaving of streets on a limited basis. There has been a lot of demolition, but so much more needs to be done: the rehabbing of housing even the building of new housing,” he said.

Blair, the Wright State economist, said those things come with a growing economy. Rebuilding the city’s infrastructure does not necessarily translate into immediate economic prosperity.

“All of those are pretty good things,” Blair, a member of the city’s revenue forecasting committee, said of the infrastructure improvements. “It’s an outstanding job of retrenching as the city shrinks.”

Over the past decade, Dayton’s population plummeted more than 14 percent at the same time major employers — NCR, Mead-Westvaco, Delphi — either went out of business or left town.

Blair said the rebuilding of the city’s infrastructure, while needed, was not an engine for current economic growth. He makes a distinction between money spent that creates technology or products and the accompanying jobs — economic growth — from money spent that facilitates or attracts — infrastructure — the created technology, products and jobs.

“For the Dayton economy it doesn’t do much,” Blair said,”though regionally there probably is a small bump” in the economy.

The city is working to get more of the grant money going to local businesses as a way to boost the economy, Mayor Gary Leitzell said.

While grants do not have to be repaid, they do come with restrictions. The money is usually awarded for specific projects and can only be spent for those purposes. Often grants are required to fit a neighborhood’s economic profile, others require a specific mix of disadvantaged or minority-owned or local subcontractors.

“What we are doing now is getting local businesses certified to bid on these type of contracts. This (process) has opened our eyes that we need to get local businesses involved. If the low bidder is a Missouri company, the money goes out of Dayton. The only way to turn this around is to get more local companies to bid” on grant-financed contracts, he said.