Dayton city officials and the family that owns Dayton-area White Allen auto dealerships have discussed incentives for the family’s plan to build a $3.5 million Honda store on North Main Street.

But the city has not committed to any incentives and the company’s president said Thursday the new dealership will be built with or without incentives.

Shelley Dickstein, Dayton assistant city manager for strategic development, said the city discussed the matter with the White Family of Companies Inc. at least once. She said discussions on the company’s overall plans have gone on for about a year, and she could not remember what kinds of incentives were discussed.

Tim White — whose family also owns dealerships in South Dakota, Wyoming and elsewhere in Ohio — said the plan will go forward whether his business gets incentives or not.

White wants to build a Honda dealership just north of his current family-owned White Allen Honda dealership. He spoke with the Dayton Daily News of an array of projects — some underway or soon to begin — that would amount to a total of $10 million of investments in Montgomery County by his business.

The new Honda store would have a ground floor covering 21,508 square feet, a mezzanine of 5,772 square feet for a total area of 27,280 square feet, according to plans the company submitted to Dayton. The lot would cover 2.29 acres with a frontage on North Main of 541 feet. It would be built at the 600-660 block of North Main Street.

White said his chief financial officer approached several area development bodies, including CityWide Development and the Dayton-Montgomery County Port Authority, seeking possible incentives, but was told money was not available for the project.

Incentives “may help us hire more people faster,” White said. Regardless, he added: “It will go forward whether we receive incentives or not.”

The White family has also aired a plan to give the city a “green buffer” area north of U.S. 35 off North Main Street, a plot that would help stave off possibly unwanted development too close to McPherson Town Historic District, Dickstein said.

The White family has operated auto stores just north of downtown since the mid-1930s. White says the next steps are purchasing property from Harmon Management Group (which oversaw the former Harmon Cadillac store) and a Feb. 19 Dayton Plan Board meeting that reviews the company’s planned development application for the first time. He also is seeking to buy right-of-way space from the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT).

Included in documents the company has filed with the city is a Jan. 16 email from Wayne Callahan, an ODOT real estate administrator, saying ODOT District 7 “has no objection” to certain ODOT property being included in the company’s planned development application, even though the White Family of Cos. does not yet own the ODOT property.

The company’s application also says the possibility of hiring new employees “clearly exists.”

“It is a marketing axiom that the concentration of the same type of uses literally building to building results in attracting greater traffic, greater business, thus leading to greater success of the endeavor. The … proposed location is ideally suited for the proposed use, ” the application says.

Dickstein said White’s plans do not surprise her, given how durable his business is and how involved he has been in downtown matters.

“He has been an anchor actually there for a very long time and certainly in a good location,” Dickstein said.