The demolition and site facade programs both have the city paying half the cost of approved demolition or improvement projects, not to exceed $25,000. Approved projects must meet city standards, with the property owner and city staff together reviewing bids and choosing a contractor.
All the programs fall under the $500,000 the city has set aside annually for general economic development, said Gregg Gorsuch, Kettering development director. No program will impose new taxes on property owners, he said in an interview before council approved the plans.
The Wilmington Pike improvement plan seeks to improve a core commercial corridor of the city, said Gorsuch and Tom Robillard, Kettering’s director of planning and development. It builds on the work of a committee of city and business leaders that has met monthly.
“It’s no secret,” Gorsuch said. “There have been a lot of (business) vacancies on Wilmington Pike.”
Ken Brightman, a Southmoor Circle architect who served on the committee, said it was clear that Wilmington needed attention to reach its potential.
“It’s prime real estate, and it’s really underutilized at this point,” Brightman said.
The plan will involve street work and improvements to pedestrian areas and streetscapes, but not large road repaving work, Gorsuch said. The focus also will mean enforcement of building maintenance codes.
The goal is to create an area attractive for reinvestment at a time when development is more challenging than raw greenfield development, they said. Beyond Miami Valley Research Park on the city’s eastern edge, there is little greenfield space in the city ripe for new development, Gorsuch said.
“We have been a redevelopment city for a while now,” he said.
There’s no deadline to improve Wilmington Pike, only a plan that serves as a “map” for how to get there, Robillard said. “The primary thing we want to do here is create value.”
The plan focuses on Wilmington between the Woodman Drive “V” north past the Kettering Business Park. There the road touches at various points East Stroop, Brownleigh, Dorothy Lane, Beaver Creek Lane, Smithville and Forrer and other cross streets.
Smithville to Colfax is identified as a “high priority” area, needing investment. “Vacant buildings and low-rent businesses” are found on the west side of Wilmington, the city’s planning document notes. But there have been some promising investments of the east side of Wilmington in that area, including a new Heartland Pharmacy, Performance Gymnastics Academy, 2430 Wilmington, and more.
Perhaps the section of Wilmington that has seen the greatest public investment in recent years is in the area of the intersection with Dorothy, where there has been significant road construction. But the city notes that other than “fast food restaurants,” little business reinvestment has happened.
City staffers have dubbed the “highest priority” stretch as “Middle Earth.” There, Doctor’s Urgent Care, 3604 Wilmington, and China Cottage, 3718 Wilmington, are some of the properties that have been well maintained, city planners believe. Here, the city calls for a landscaped median and “significant” street work.
“Significant demolition should occur to eliminate blighting influences” in that area, the planning document says.
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