Getting a kick out of a building’s reuse

Business
By Mark Fisher
May 26, 2013
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The former U.S. Post Office at 99 Maple Ave. in Centerville, which closed more than a year ago, has its first tenant. The facility has welcomed the Centerville Kuk Sul Do Academy, a martial-arts school.

Centerville Development Director Nathan Cahall said he’s pleased to see an existing Centerville business choose a location in the city to relocate and grow. And the owners of the academy say on their website that they are “looking forward to making excellent use of the extra space.”

Cahall said he expects other tenants to join the martial arts school in the former post office in the near future.

Dubious Fortune list

My colleague Chelsey Levingston reports that two Fortune 500 companies with major operations in southwest Ohio also made another list compiled by Fortune Magazine: the companies with the biggest losses in 2012.

Fortune’s annual list of America’s 500 largest publicly-traded corporations by revenues was released earlier this month. Along with that ranking, Fortune published a list of the 20 Fortune 500 companies with the biggest net losses in 2012.

Making the list of 20 biggest losses last year were Lisle, Ill.-based Navistar International Corp., which owns a plant in Springfield that makes medium duty trucks; and West Chester Twp.-based AK Steel Holding Corp, a steelmaker that runs a plant in Middletown.

Navistar ranked 216 on the Fortune 500 list, with $12.9 billion in revenues for fiscal year 2012. Navistar’s net loss last fiscal year, which ended Oct. 31, 2012, was more than $3 billion.

AK Steel fell in the ranking to 430 on $5.9 billion in revenues. The Ohio steelmaker incurred losses last calendar year of more than $1 billion.

Apocalyptic calendar among award winners

ACCO Brands’ operations in Kettering — before last year’s merger, they were known as MeadWestvaco Consumer & Office Products — scored eight awards from the Calendar Marketing Association (CMA) for several of its Mead and DayDream calendar lines, including one with a distinctly Dayton-area flavor.

One of the award-winning calendars features several shots from various locations around the area which are then used as a “before” picture of sorts in a “Year One” pictorial representation of the world had the Mayan Apocalypse actually happened.

“Our creative team traveled around the Dayton area, taking photos of familiar sites and locations, and then completed some ‘devastating’ rendering to the photos,” said ACCO Brands marketing manager Bob Sadowski. The calendar earned a a bronze award for originality from the CMA.

The Mead and DayDream brands produce nearly 400 calendars each year for the retail market. The 2014 editions are scheduled to be available online in mid-summer of 2013.

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About the Author

Mark Fisher, a 1981 graduate of Ohio State University and a 1976 graduate of Beavercreek High School, is a third-generation Dayton-area resident who has worked for the Dayton Daily News since 1983. He covered higher education and K-12 education accountability issues for nearly 20 years before taking over the food and dining beat in 2006.