The portion of the route that will be closed off — which currently bisects Area A and Kittyhawk — is on federal land.
Area A and Kittyhawk will be combined, reducing the number of entrances on that section of the base from four to two (Gates 12A and 1A), which will save the Air Force money, base spokesman Daryl Mayer said. This is the first step in the Air Force’s long-term plan to upgrade security at all of its gates.
Cost of the project to close Ohio 444 is $700,000, which includes the installation of the new fencing and an interim Gate 1A adjacent to the commissary. The Air Force is paying for the project, Mayer said.
The interim Gate 1A, which is expected to be open by mid-November, will be open 24/7. A permanent Gate 1A is being planned, but that project — in the $12 million range — is “several years down the road,” Mayer said.
Mayer said an environmental impact study revealed that 85 percent of the traffic that travels that stretch of Ohio 444 is base-related.
“Security is the big driver,” Mayer said. “It limits the number of 24-hour entry points that we have. But also in addition to removing the road that bisects the two parts of the base, the current gate 1A is between a cemetery and a building.
“You don’t have the standoff distance around the gate. Moving it onto the current 444 gives us the amount of distance we need to build in the security measures we need to have.”
The Ohio 444 reroute has been a controversial topic in Fairborn since the Air Force revealed its intentions several years ago to shut down that stretch of road that serves the city’s business district.
While city officials are optimistic that the project will help revitalize the Kauffman corridor, business owners believe the change could potentially have more of a negative impact on the city, especially on Broad Street.
Their concern is that drivers may be more likely to continue north on Central rather than turning left onto Dayton, bypassing the businesses on Broad Street altogether.
David Gorby, who owns Wayne Gorby Transmission and Auto Services on 118 N. Broad St., has seen a decline in customers since the electronic message boards were placed on Ohio 444.
For the last three weeks, Gorby said his business has averaged between 10 to 15 customers a week, but prior to that, it was 30 to 40. He said he’s increased his advertising budget in Yellowbook by 10 percent.
“It’s usually never this slow,” Gorby said. “There’s nothing we can do (about the reroute). We just have to adapt to it.”
Jamie Hensley, owner of Jamie’s Tire and Service on 31 S. Broad St., said he remains “cautiously optimistic,” but his fear is that Broad Street will evolve from a business district into a driveway for base traffic.
“If traffic backs up in front of my store, I don’t know if people will want to go to that end of town because of the traffic snarl,” Hensley said. “I hope it’s not detrimental to my business. I’m nervous about it, that’s for sure.”
Jeff Roberts, an agent for State Farm Insurance, moved his office from 45 N. Broad St. to 1074 Kauffman in May because of the impending Ohio 444 reroute. His building tripled in size from 500 square feet to 1,600 square feet.
“I see it as nothing but a positive,” Roberts said. “We moved here because the majority of the traffic is going to be rerouted right in front of our building. For us, it was the visibility of all the cars.”
Chris Wimsatt, the city’s community development director, said the city has been in discussions with businesses and developers who are interested in investing along Kauffman, where a near-empty strip mall sits.
“It’s an opportunity for some and it makes others uneasy because it’s significant, and change is uneasy,” Wimsatt said. “People just don’t know.”
Wimsatt said the perception is that the reroute will cause Broad Street to lose traffic, but it’s too soon to come to any conclusion.
“If your business is aggressive and viable and you make a business case for people to frequent your operation, it’s not a huge issue,” Wimsatt said. “As a business owner, you can still create a demand in any situation.”
The Ohio Department of Transportation is scheduled to conduct traffic counts at three intersections — Dayton-Yellow Springs/Kauffman, Central/Dayton and Dayton/Broad — the week of Oct. 22.
An analysis is expected to be completed by the end of November, and ODOT and city officials could have an agreement in place by the end of the year for what improvements — if any — need to be made, ODOT project manager Jay Hamilton said.
The city and ODOT will work together to secure any additional funding if more improvements are necessary, and Defense Access Road Program funds could be available.
About 30 new Ohio 444 signs will be installed next week and the restriping work will be done on Oct. 10 for lane use changes at the Central/Dayton and Dayton/Broad intersections, which will require another six signs. Total cost for ODOT will be approximately $8,500.
The city will do the resignalization once the restriping is complete, Hamilton said.
“It’s hard to say,” Hamilton said of the reroute impact. “I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy. It has the potential to be a positive, especially for that stretch of Kauffman where there’s not a lot of activity in some development there. The traffic flow going across there will maybe help revitalize that area.”
Bob Hickey, associate Vice President for public affairs at Wright State University, said the school plans to send multiple email blasts with a map to its students alerting them of the Ohio 444 reroute.
Students and faculty who travel Ohio 235 to Ohio 444 to Ohio 844 to get to campus will be impacted, but the majority of WSU’s 18,000-plus students won’t be affected.
“We know it will be some inconvenience to folks at Wright State,” Hickey said. “We hope to be able to deal with that.”
Ana Ramirez, the director of long range planning and engineering for the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission, said the impact will be “localized to the area around the base.”
“I think it’s wait and see,” she said. “There will definitely be some impact, probably for the first couple of weeks to a month until people get used to it. It might be a bit of a mess.”
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