“Preservation and progress go hand-in-hand,” Ohio Lt. Gov. Jim Tressel said in a prepared statement about the tax credit awards. “This program strengthens local economies and ensures future generations can benefit from the places that have long been at the heart of their communities.”
The Ohio Department of Development this week announced the winners of the Round 35 Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit Program, which included two projects in Dayton and one in Trotwood.
United Church Homes and Weyland Ventures won about $4.3 million in tax credits for their proposal to rehab and restore the historic Longfellow school buildings at 245 Salem Ave. in northwest Dayton.
The developers plan to create 54 new apartments for people 55 and older in the historic buildings on the site, plus they propose constructing a new building containing 72 additional apartments.
The $39 million project in the Grafton Hill neighborhood seeks to create new independent living for as many as 180 older community members, including people who are LGBTQ+. The project also will revitalize common areas in the complex, including a gym and an auditorium, to create tenant amenities and other uses.
The state awarded the Longfellow project $1.8 million in Ohio historic tax credits four years ago, and the project also received a second allocation of $1.4 million in tax incentives in late 2022.
But a spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Development recently told the Dayton Daily News that those credits were rescinded in November 2024 after the project failed to reach key construction milestones by required deadlines. The developers’ most recent application for state historic tax credits says no major rehabilitation work has started at the property.
This is not unheard of: Multiple other local adaptive-reuse proposals saw their tax credits revoked by the state because the projects did not make enough progress. In a couple of cases, the developers were able to obtain new tax incentive awards later on.
Dayton Public Schools shut down Longfellow school about eight years ago, and the property most recently served as an alternative school for grades 7 to 12. The school was first built in the 1880s, though new structures were added in following decades.
United Church Homes said the three-acre campus will be a hub for the area, and the apartments will have one or two bedrooms and range in size from 800 to 1,800 square feet.
In 2021, United Church Homes and Weyland Ventures estimated the Longfellow housing project would cost about $30 million. Since then, the total project investment has increased by $9 million (29%).
The state this week also announced that the Air City Garage in downtown Dayton also will receive $3 million in historic preservation tax credits for a rehab project, and the old Sears department store in Trotwood will get $3.5 million for a mixed-use project. Both of those projects also won tax credits earlier this year.
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