< Previous138 JULY 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO N Spread out!” Pick your favorite team sport, and you’ll likely hear some variation of this concept yelled from the sideline, whether it’s a gaggle of six-year-olds packed in around a soccer ball or an elite squad of basketball players who seem too big for the court — like those who play every year in Dayton at the NCAA men’s basketball championship First Four play-in games. e idea is simple: e more space you put between yourselves, the easier it is to move without the ball, distribute the puck or run a pass pattern to that precise point where the quarterback has just thrown a pass. Ohio has prospered in economic development over many years in large part because of its well- spaced team of metro areas — just far enough apart to have their own ecosystems, and just close enough together to feel part of a larger network. e Dayton-Kettering metro (Site Selection’s No. Tier Top Metro for ) has its own family of unique towns and projects, and is also part of a triad mega-region with Cincinnati and Columbus. e Dayton Development Coalition’s cross- sector collaboration model plays a big part in the southwestern Ohio corridor. Dayton is intimately connected to the state’s largest single-site employer, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. And it’s more connected to venture capitalists, thanks in part to assets such as the Air Force Research Laboratory and University of Dayton Research Institute. DDC President and CEO Jeff Hoagland says the state’s universities all have fi gured out the value of better economic development engagement. e best part? Dayton not only has the University of Dayton, Wright State, Miami University and Sinclair Community College, but all those other great schools are only an hour away — just far enough away to not get in each other’s way, just close enough to collaborate. Lately, Dayton’s had a string of bad luck: tornadoes on Memorial Day; a national opioid crisis that has concentrated in the region; derelict properties. But there are other stories (told in the following pages) turning the tide, as Greater Dayton demonstrates its resilience and fi nds itself in a renaissance concurrent with a nation in the mood to rediscover life and work in small cities and towns. Startups are afoot, and the DDC’s own in-house venture capital fund Accelerant has invested in more than a dozen. Moreover, the Brookings Institution found Dayton to be one of only of the top metro areas in the nation achieving inclusive growth. Not just conversation, but action, is occurring to bridge socio-economic and racial divides, as well as generational ones. “ ough there are lots of diff erent moving parts,” says Julie Sullivan, executive vice president of regional development at the DDC, “at the root of it, our region is very good at moving major initiatives forward collaboratively. Foundationally, that is in our heritage. Now we’re getting to a point where our universities are more engaged in these conversations as well, with more targeted industry engagement. A lot of these conversations are happening around the region.” Sounds like eff ective teamwork. Dayton has a way of turning talk to action, and playbook into performance. e Dayton Conversation “ Adam Bruns, Managing Editor D A YT ON | INTELLIGENCE REPORT Introduction142 JULY 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO N D A YT ON | INTELLIGENCE REPORTD A YT ON | INTELLIGENCE REPORTD A YT ON | INTELLIGENCE REPORTD A YT ON | INTELLIGENCE REPORTD A YT ON | INTELLIGENCE REPORT The old GM plant (now Fuyao). e Fairgrounds. e old International Harvester plant in Springfi eld (now Topre). e Arcade. e litany of redevelopment projects in Greater Dayton can sound like an exercise in nostalgia. But it’s really more about case studies in renewal. By now you may have heard the story of the closed GM plant in Moraine that came to be inhabited by a Chinese auto glass supplier now employing thousands. Fuyao Glass America held the grand opening in fall for its -acre, $-million facility, which it billed as the largest glass fabrication plant in the world with the capacity to produce million automotive car sets and million automotive replacement glass windshields each year. Shane Imwalle is chief strategy offi cer for Woolpert, the global architecture, engineering and geospatial fi rm based in Dayton. He recently spoke on the phone from Switzerland about his own experience of the Fuyao story. “ ey wanted to feed both Detroit and their other customer Safelite,” the auto glass replacement and repair company headquartered in Columbus,” he says. Fuyao wanted to go greenfi eld, but JobsOhio’s Christy Tanner went to a Fuyao grand opening in Russia and convinced their leadership to have a look at the former GM truck and bus factory, then owned by industrial property turnaround specialists IRG. “ e model with IRG is demo-to-suit instead of build-to- suit,” says Imwalle, right-sizing what was a mega- factory by essentially forming manufacturing versions of condos. After some encouragement from Mike Davis, then the economic director for Moraine, IRG had literally saved the site from the scrap heap, as the highest bidders for the site (then controlled by RACER Trust, in charge of liquidating a number of GM sites) were going to be scrap metal companies, based on prices at the time. “Mike Davis reached out to the IRG team and said, “Could you come down and look at this?” e auto bailout was intended for job creation, not killing jobs,” Imwalle says. “If that factory went, the employment base would go with it. When John Kasich came through Dayton on a gubernatorial campaign stop with Newt Gingrich in tow, Imwalle asked a question about Old Places, New Faces Renaissance Woolpert has worked with Fuyao Glass America since 2014 to help redevelop the abandoned GM plant into the largest auto glass producing plant in the world. Shown here is the company’s showroom. Photo courtesy of Woolpert S I T E S E L E C T I O N JULY 2018 143 D A YT ON | INTELLIGENCE REPORT the GM plant situation at a small forum at Sinclair Community College. In a conversation afterward, Gingrich told Imwalle the case simply needed to be made for what was in the best interests of the taxpayers: If someone could come in and create around , jobs and help dent unemployment, Gingrich recommended, that would carry the day vs. the scrap heap. rough the Dayton Development Coalition (DDC), Imwalle met and worked with IRG, the city of Moraine and the Ohio congressional delegation to convince the Obama administration that instead of the scrap conveyor belt, the building should be conveyed to what was in the best interest of the community. “Senator Sherrod Brown appealed to the Obama administration to change the process for liquidating the property, and he pulled it off ,” says Imwalle. e city chose IRG as the developer. When JobsOhio’s Tanner successfully convinced the Fuyao chairman to come look in Moraine, Woolpert, based in Dayton since , was there with Chinese-speaking staff . Fuyao was so new to the U.S. they asked which architect the government would choose for them. “We had Moraine, Woolpert, IRG, the DDC, the University of Dayton and JobsOhio all working together to close this one,” Imwalle says. Between and tenants are on the property today, with about , sq. ft. still left. “It’s all -ton-crane capable, with -foot-high ceilings, in a market with heavy demand for manufacturing, unlimited water and Interstate access,” Imwalle says. “Almost a decade later, the master plan Woolpert did for IRG has nearly come to fruition. A Giant Awakens In the heart of Dayton’s central business district, Cross Street Partners (CSP), Model Group, and McCormack Baron Salazar will redevelop the historic Dayton Arcade, a collection of nine buildings totaling over , sq. ft., into a mixed-use district, directly across the street from the Levitt Pavilion outdoor live music venue. e fi rst phase is an innovation hub and residential development partnership with the University of Dayton. It’s all at the center of a nine-block redevelopment strategy led by the city that builds on existing underutilized assets to build a premier downtown urban neighborhood centered around a central park. “From an urban core standpoint, I have not seen a community come together on a project like this in my years here,” says Dayton Development Coalition President and CEO Jeff Hoagland of a project that some say has been simmering since the s, as the property sat vacant and derelict. “If it weren’t for the University of Dayton being the major anchor and signing the lease, this project would not have happened. It’s great to have a partner that 144 JULY 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO N stepped outside their normal campus footprint, . miles away from downtown, but for them to do that was taking another step in the right direction.” Julie Sullivan, the DDC’s executive vice president of regional development, has worked with Cross Street for four years, and the deal fi nally reached fi nancial closing this spring. e laundry list of partners in the capital stack is long. “All said it was the most complicated structure they’d ever seen,” she says. She calls the project “catalytic for a lot of reasons. It not only provides a hub for entrepreneurial development and interaction with students and startups, but it’s also a rallying point for the community in general, because seeing a project like this come to fruition means we’re worthy, and looking to the future.” “It’s an absolutely gorgeous structure, with its big glass dome — a beautiful, beautiful building,” says the DDC’s Shannon Joyce Howe. “It’s one of those historic structures that people would call and burst into tears about, worrying it would get torn down. e fact that the deal is moving forward is something I never thought I’d see after living in Dayton for most of the last years. I cannot wait to walk in the doors. It’s almost an emotional milestone for Dayton.” ose feelings were even given artistic form. “Six months ago, when the project was really starting to pick up steam, a mural of a sleeping giant was painted on the side,” Sullivan says. “ e day the fi nancial structure closed, they painted it so the giant had awakened.” Downtown Comes Back to onMain Yet another area of downtown rebirth is at the former Montgomery County Fairgrounds, right across the street from Emerson Helix and the GE EPISCenter, two R&D facilities the companies sited downtown that have fi red their own redevelopment sparks. e onMain site is owned by the University of Dayton and Premier Health, and envisioned as a walkable mixed-use development that will be home to the University of Dayton Research Institute (UDRI) for starters, and eventually turn acres into Dayton’s Imagination District. In May, Buddy LaChance, a system vice president of real estate at Premier Health and previously director of neighborhood development for CityWide Development Corp., took the reins as CEO of onMain. “Opportunities to create a vibrant neighborhood from the ground up on the doorstep of downtown Dayton just don’t come along very often,” he said. In an interview, LaChance, an architect by training, says he came to Dayton from Cincinnati in the early s, gradually fi nding his way into work with nonprofi ts and real estate development, including a previous deal for the Fairgrounds redevelopment that fell through. e city and county came to Premier and UD and asked them to take over the sales contract to purchase the property. ey did, and after closing the purchase in April , began working on a vision for its development. “It’s unlike anything that’s been done in the Dayton area,” he says, because it’s a wide open property, but also one that’s so close to those two major employers at GE and Emerson. And because the two institutions don’t require a speedy return on capital, they have a long- term view to do something diff erent, something that takes into account how people work together, connects to the fabric of the community and incorporates the west side of Dayton, which has not received the level of investment other parts of town have experienced the past few years. e S I T E S E L E C T I O N JULY 2018 145 D A YT ON | INTELLIGENCE REPORT overall plan could end up with over million sq. ft. of offi ce and research space, more than , housing units and around , sq. ft. of retail. “ e University of Dayton UD and Premier have committed to leasing about , sq. ft. out of the building that anchors the development. We think that’s a good start,” LaChance says. Next comes a developer to build out the research and innovation space, and housing. “We’ve already talked to a number of housing developers, and they’re chomping at the bit, quite frankly to get into this. It supports the type of housing they think the market is looking for.” While the UDRI has fi lled virtually all the space it bought from NCR when that company moved its HQ to Atlanta, LaChance sees onMain catering to smaller groups of researchers or businesses, entrepreneurs looking to collaborate. “Between what the university, Premier Health and onMain own, we can provide space for everything from a very small group of people wanting to work together to solve a problem, to a bigger business working with Wright-Patterson Air Force Base,” he says, “all in a setting designed to be what employers are looking for in this very competitive market, particularly for young people.” A vision for onMainNext >