New downtown Dayton office tower takes step forward

CareSource’s plans for a new six-story office tower have received the blessing of the Dayton Board of Zoning Appeals, with some conditions.

CareSource intends to construct a new building on the vacant site of the former Patterson Co-op High School on the 100 block of East First Street.

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But the building plans required about six zoning variances for pedestrian-oriented design standards, including window orientation and placement, parking along the frontage and multi-tenant occupancy.

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The new building will have a similar appearance and design of CareSource’s headquarters at North Main and Monument streets, which broke ground in 2007.

The new office tower will connect the Main Street business corridor with the residential neighborhood just east, which includes Cooper Place, Cooper Lofts, Patterson Place, the Ice Lofts and the Litehouse homes, city officials said.

“For me, it’s pretty exciting to think about the way this building will bridge the Main Street core area, the commercial area and then the more residential area to the east there,” said Tony Kroeger, Dayton city planner.

He added, “This has been a hole downtown for a number of years now, and it’s going to be a really interesting connection between the two.”

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The building, called CareSource Center City, is expected to open in 2019. CareSource decided to reduce the size of the building to six floors from seven after purchasing a building it leased called Ballpark Village, across from Fifth Third Field.

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