I sat on the lawn of the Levitt Pavilion last week listening to a free concert- in the shadow of what was once the premier hotel in Downtown Dayton- it’s currently vacant. The Crowne Plaza was home to many banquets, events, a really nice rooftop restaurant with a stunning view of the sunsets- and a comfortable piano bar. It had a rooftop inground pool, and was connected to both the convention center and the transportation center garage- so it had plenty of parking and lots of space for you to convention in.

So why is it vacant? And why do we, the taxpayers have to be hit up for millions to build a brand new hotel caty-corner to it?

We’re being fed a line of BS about how our convention center can’t survive without a class A hotel nearby. So instead of just buying the old Crowne Plaza and updating it- we have to figure a way to force it to be torn down to make the demolition folks and landfill operators rich (that’s the common theme in Dayton’s last 50 years).

Never mind that we also have the old Doubletree on S. Ludlow sitting empty as well – next to the gaping lot where the Dayton Daily News used to be. Remember the couple of million the taxpayers spent preparing that boondoggle for the “Student Suites” student housing for Sinclair students that never materialized? I didn’t think so- our institutional memory of failings by government is shorter than the attention span of a goldfish.

Somehow, despite the fact that we can still host WGI without this hotel, or any number of events, considering we’ve just brought 2 new hotels online and a third is opening soon- we just have to build this one on the courtyard in front of the former Chins/Elbows and across from the former Gilly’s.

Note: If the city was any good at development, how is it that both these spaces on the ground floor of the transportation center garage are still vacant years after closing (pre-covid)? Both were on sweetheart leases at sub-market rates and had the draw of the conventions, the Neon, and still nothing.

Weyland Ventures is talking about turning the old St. Pauls on Wayne Avenue into a 72 room hotel as well. We’ve got the new Marriot AC Hotel by the ballpark with the most amazing rooftop restaurant/bar and 130 rooms. The hotel Ardent is opening on Main across from the Victoria with 118 rooms. There is the Fairfield Suites on Monument that has 98 rooms.

Yes, the old Crowne Plaza had 291 rooms. The old Doubletree on Ludlow had 184, and the new hotel in the arcade, a Hilton Garden will have 93. And yet, somehow, we have to have a new hotel right across from the Crowne Plaza- costing north of $60M with only 200 rooms.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to reopen both the Doubletree and the Crowne Plaza for the $60M and not fill the landfill?
Or better yet- close off either 5th or Ludlow by the convention center and expand it so it can handle bigger conventions? We already blew it when we didn’t build the Schuster Center with it’s 2300 seats at the corner of 5th and Main to add a larger gathering space for conventions. Instead we built a parking garage for the Reibold building. But that ship sailed long ago. The rap on the Dayton convention center with it’s 700 seat theater is it just isn’t big enough for middle sized conventions. It’s why Columbus built a new convention center- and Cincinnati is working on expanding theirs. Size matters.

When one considers the Courtyard by Marriott across from UD Arena just went on the auction block, it’s hard to see why there is such a clamor for more rooms. If there was truly a need for rooms, it’s doubtful the Crowne Plaza would have gone bust. And in case you’ve been living under a rock, we now have a ton of AirBnB’s in close proximity to the Convention Center (and yes- I own 2 of them- and there are at least 5 on my 3 block street alone in South Park).

For once, can we try not to demolish something that’s sitting right there in front of us, and find a way to adapt, reuse and recycle? There are also other buildings in the near proximity that could be turned back into housing or hotels- like the Fidelity building, or the upper floors of the Spaghetti Warehouse.

Or maybe, we think outside of the box- and invest in a new trolley line from the VA to WSU via Third Street with a stop near the Museum of the United States Air Force that shuttles people from the hotels by the base near the convention center- and the areas biggest attraction- and tying in the Nutter Center? Might that be a smarter solution and actually add something useful for OUR community- not just visitors to a convention? Or an RTA train from the Airport to downtown? Ala Cleveland? How are all these conventioneers supposed to make it to this new mecca of hotels?

Let’s be clear, when the Convention opened and operated for years, it did it with just the Crown Plaza, the Doubletree and the Admiral Benbow Motor Inn (which was demolished to build the troubled bus hub downtown). We now have more hotel rooms coming online than there were when this thing launched.

If there’s anything we should have learned by now, it’s that our convention center isn’t really that great as it stands. We’ve paid for remodeling it at least 3 times- and still can’t figure out why the world isn’t beating a path to it. We’re making excuses for a sub-par center, that was built where it was built mostly to eliminate a bunch of classic theaters that had turned to porn to stay in business- which offended the powers that be.

The value of the Transportation Center garage has never been fully tapped. To do that, it should be the primary parking location for the Oregon DORA district on the weekends- with a skywalk over the train tracks (think about a glass floor- allowing you to watch a train speed by). Or for building a hockey/basketball, concert facility with 5000 seats to pull people downtown all the time (we’re desperately short of ice since Hara Arena/Winterland got blown away by the tornadoes).

It’s time to seriously look at the Convention and Visitors Bureau and the brain trust that came up with this cockamamie scheme- and figure out who’s getting paid off Because, it’s always, in the end, about following the money.

And the song for the post: Hotel Dreams.