"Dayton has a rich urban fabric, and if we don't figure out how to bring equity to projects, people will continue to suggest demolition (as opposed to redevelopment)," said Amy Walbridge, special projects administrator for the City of Dayton Department of Economic Development.
On a recent tour of the 1868 building, Walbridge saw plenty of potential in vast rooms of exposed brick, wooden columns and arched windows.
Plans call for the vacant factory to be redeveloped into loft apartments by City Properties Group, LLC, in association with CityVisions Associates, a redevelopment firm located in Louisville, Kentucky.
Barry Alberts, managing partner at CityVisions, said his firm has secured the necessary financing for the $8.5 million project. CityVisions is working out the final details, Alberts said, so a start date has not been finalized.
“We’re planning to completely redevelop that building into about 40 residential units and 20,000 square feet of commercial and restaurant space on the lower floors,” Alberts said. “It’s a great building; we’ve got both state and federal tax credits awarded to the project.”
The Weustoff and Getz project will benefit from building historic tax credits from the state of Ohio. Walbridge said it’s the city’s job to help private individuals put together applications for historic tax credits and advise redevelopers to take on historic projects. This building boasts a thick file recounting its role in the local economy over the past 147 years.
“When it comes to historic preservation, the city is in a supportive role to attract historic tax credits,” Walbridge said.
Vacancy rates
Not all the historic buildings in Dayton are so fortunate. The old Key Bank building and the Arcade, both located in the heart of downtown, are two vacant structures the city is struggling to preserve.
The city is waiting on a decision from a Montgomery County Common Pleas magistrate on whether it may buy the historic Paru Tower, formerly Key Bank, for $500,000.
“It’s one of the most architecturally promising buildings, and next to the Arcade, most distinguishable in downtown Dayton,” said Aaron Sorrell, the city’s director of planning and community development.
The Arcade complex, built with rich history and rare architecture, would require at least $55 million to convert into apartments, and at least $8 million to demolish the whole block, said John Gower, a part-time urband designer.
A task force recently recommended that the city spend up to $1.9 million over the next three-to-five years to stabilize the structure. The city commission could reach a decision on how to proceed with the Arcade by the end of the month.
Gower believes the time is right for urban renewal and redevelopment, but knows it’s difficult to scrape together funds for huge projects.
“With housing increasing, targeting millennials … econometrics say you can cover the expenses of redevelopment with the future revenue because of the ascending housing market,” Gower said.
According to a recent Miller Valentine Group office market study, provided by Dayton city planner Tony Kroeger, “the 2014 overall market vacancy rate of 26.03 percent is up from the 2013-reported figure of 25.66 percent.”
In the Dayton central business district, the study reported 32.48 percent of the surveyed office space as vacant in 2014.
Cincy success
An hour drive south, Cincinnati has enjoyed more success in the historic preservation-and-urban renewal business than Dayton. In the hands of the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation — also known as 3CDC — the revitalized Over-the-Rhine district north of downtown is now nothing like the economically stagnant neighborhood it was only a few years ago.
Walbridge attributes much of Cincinnati’s success to the scale of its projects.
“If you look at Over-the-Rhine, the height and scale of the buildings are four stories and under,” she said. “Comparatively, the building scale of downtown Dayton buildings that we want to see developed match up better with the Cleveland inventory than with Cincinnati.”
Cincinnati has treated its abandoned neighborhoods as projects to spur growth, and saw heavy involvement from the corporate community, something that hasn’t happened in Dayton. Anastasia Mileham, 3CDC vice president, said much of the funding for Cincinnati’s projects included philanthropy and help from businesses, not just tax credits.
”Cincinnati had been suffering a little bit of a decline a decade ago, and the corporate communities — P&G, Kroger, Macy’s to name a few — came together, and the mayor at the time, Charlie Luken, developed an economic development task force,” Mileham said.
She said that the business community paid for research on economic development, which led to the creation of 3CDC, a nonprofit, private real estate corporation.
“We hired the CEO of a corporation in Pittsburgh, and then funded it $50 million to go after Over-the-Rhine,” Mileham said. “Our focus was created for us by the study, and it was a focus on the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, where you’ve got these extra-high vacancy and poverty rates and criminal activity.”
If you talk a walk down Vine Street in Cincinnati today, you’d see a “hip-and-happening” place. Millenials are moving into fashionable, loft apartments that used to be slums, and bars and restaurants are opening on every corner, catering to the flurry of activity at Findlay Market.
Seeking millenials
Walbridge said Dayton’s Oregon District tries to imitate Over-the-Rhine, but Dayton still struggles to entice millenials — the target market. This is because the Miami Valley trend is increasing land development and there is little population growth, so vacancies are rising and property values declining, according to a report released by the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission.
Brian Martin, executive director of the planning commission, said one of its goals is to develop existing infrastructure and take advantage of historic tax credits to reuse vacant buildings of historic value.
Gower thinks it’s only a matter of time until millenials revive Dayton. Until then, some properties will remain vacant.
“You take the financial feasibility with this market phenomenon of millennials who want to be in those (urban renewal) places and it’s actually pretty darn exciting,” he said. “It’s not a lack of interest or enthusiasm, we just have to pretend we’re Spock and put that aside and look at it rationally.”
