Miller Valentine president: Company remains strong, focused on future

But Dave Dickerson, Dayton construction sales and development president for Miller-Valentine, said that through the changes, the company is returning to its roots as a commercial construction business, one that remains busy and engaged.

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“We’re getting back to our core business, which is third-party construction and development,” Dickerson said in an interview Thursday.

The company Wednesday announced a new downtown Dayton headquarters, which should serve as a clear signal that Miller Valentine is here to stay, Dickerson said.

“This whole thing is about focus and about taking the company to the next generation of leadership and opportunities,” he said.

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The Dayton-based construction company plans to become the anchor tenant at 409 E. Monument Ave., about a half mile from its current headquarters at 137 N. Main St., the Barclay building.

The 10-story Barclay building will be converted into a boutique hotel by Lawyers Developer of Columbus and First Hospitality of Chicago.

Miller Valentine’s 48 employees will move to their new offices in October after renovations are complete on the second floor of the building.

Dickerson said the company remains strong and busy, working on the new Pratt Industries $311 million, nearly 700,000-square-foot paper mill in Wapakoneta, the 96,000-plus-square-foot home for Staco Energy Products in Miamisburg, the Projects Unlimited headquarters expansion in Vandalia and more.

The company is also involved in the $90 million Festo U.S. expansion in Mason, an expansion expected to create 350 new jobs.

Said Dickerson: “Our core business was and is construction.”

Dickerson declined to comment on the federal lawsuit. But he said it would be wrong to look at recent changes and misconstrue them as Miller Valentine somehow getting smaller or weaker, he said. The company remains a sizable organization, he maintains.

“We sort of lost the message in the last couple of years because we were doing a lot of different things,” he said.

The brokerage and leasing business that went to Apex — which continues to work with Miller Valentine — was just a small piece of its overall business, he said.

“We are very strong and really like where we are positioned in the Midwest,” Dickerson said.