The city of Dayton owns the property between Third Street and U.S. 35 today, near Abbey Avenue, Wittmer noted. She referred questions about possible development of the site to the city.
But speaking with attendees at NAHA’s 2025 annual meeting, she added: “The National Park Service is still in their acquisition process for that property, and NAHA as a partner to the park service will continue to support the park as they pursue acquisition.”
Wittmer noted that Dayton police are building a $5.5 million command center at the corner of West Third and Abbey. The site is near the former factory, but within the boundary of the national park, she said. Many hope the investment will be an economic boon to the area.
“There is a lot of work to be done on fire cleanup and structural analysis, on what can be stabilized and preserved for our future use,” she said.
Kendell Thompson, superintendent of the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park, said the fire was a true “Wright Brothers moment.”
“They crashed, they rebuilt, they kept going,” Thompson said.
The No. 1 factory building is “not good,” he said.
“But the walls are still standing, some of the trusses are still standing, there are some portions of it, small portions, that are not burned,” he added.
The historic portion of building No. 2 remains intact. “It’s still a mess,” he said.
NAHA covers eight counties in Western Ohio, seeking to conserve and present an array of sites integral to the American history of flight and space, such as Huffman Prairie on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where the Wright Brothers worked to refine controlled, powered flight.
The park and NAHA are separate but allied. NAHA is a nonprofit designated by Congress to manage historic aviation sites.
Also at the annual meeting, NAHA leaders acknowledged that federal funding has been especially uncertain in recent months.
Earlier this year, the park had been working to fill about six permanent positions before the Trump administration instructed the park service to eliminate job postings and rescind job offers with onboarding dates beyond Feb. 8, Wittmer told this newspaper.
Both Wittmer and Mike Heil, NAHA’s chair, expressed some optimism about possible funding for fiscal year 2026.
But they also said the road ahead could be a tough one. The federal government’s fiscal year ends Sept. 30.
Even without federal funding, NAHA will continue to exist, Heil said. He noted that Congress, not a presidential executive order, created NAHA.
“However, that funding is so vitally important to allow us to do the great things,” he said.
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