The neighborhood organization representing South Park, Historic South Park Inc, voted officially on Tuesday May 28, 2024 to join a lawsuit against the city and the BZA for not following their own rules- and placing a “recovery high school” on the corner of Wayne and Wyoming- against the established zoning. The Walnut Hills Neighborhood association had already joined.

The problem, according to the neighborhood, is that Wayne Avenue already has some unresolved issues. We’ve had about 3 pedestrians die in the last 5 years. We’ve had several buildings hit. We’ve got 2 Sunoco Stations that are already junky and homeless central, and adding a bunch of teens to the mix doesn’t seem like a great idea.

Don’t be distracted by the discussion of zoning or the appropriateness of the high school- be pissed off about the price the city is giving away a prime corner for. One they spent about $5M+ and 3 years acquiring in a botched attempt at “development.” If you want to read about the folly, head on over to these old posts. The short story, Shelley DIckstein who used to be our director of “economic development” had a brilliant idea to blight 12 acres at the corner of Wayne and Wyoming so she could assemble a parcel to allow Kroger to build a new store with a gas station on that corner- to replace the current store which has more nicknames than any other store known to man (Freddy Kroger and Creepy Kroger are 2 leading ones). To do this, she went out and tried to option 88 parcels- expending a lot of time and money- and stopping people from doing maintenance on their homes- expecting to be bought out and fill the landfill (making Steve Rauch the demolition king richer – which is the steady theme of all development in Dayton). After she finally had the parcel under contract- it was 2009, the economy had just tanked- and Kroger wasn’t interested. You see, poor Shelley didn’t have a development contract with anyone. For this massive failure- she got promoted to City Manager.

The Spanish style (the Ecki Building) a2 story mixed use building that was on the corner since the twenties had been on the market for $265K with no takers. It had 11 apartments upstairs and a bunch of useful stores downstairs. I remember a shoe repair, a locksmith, a mini-car parts place, a bakery. It had a fire- and the owner cashed in the insurance and then held out for More. The city has at least $850K 815K in it and the additional parcels and demolition.

The neighborhood lawsuit is partially about process- the city passed this sale as an emergency ordinance at the December 2022 meeting to sell the property and did not give either South Park or Walnut Hills any notice.

The city has tried to find a developer for the site since the 2000s but nothing has panned out, said Keith Klein, senior economic development specialist with the city of Dayton.

“In my opinion, the school is clearly the best use,” he said. “The market has spoken, we’ve had it out there for a decade, there’s no restaurant coming to this site, there’s no apartment building coming to this site.”

Source: Dayton dropout recovery high school gets OK to build new school on Wayne Avenue

His idea of a fair price? $80K.

Consider that the developer of “The Flight” just down the road paid over $1.5M for the old Patterson Kennedy lot, and you have to wonder. The Wendy’s diagonally across the street is the regions highest grossing store- and desperately in need of a newer building and better traffic flows- did you ask them?

Or how about the people who’ve been building “Flying Ace Car Washes” everywhere but in Dayton? You don’t think they’d jump at that location? Their average for a smaller lot is between $700K and $1.1M. I’ve got a call in to their real estate/development office. Does Mr. Klein think people in Dayton don’t like to wash their cars? That use would be permitted by the current zoning.

There’s also been an influx of new gas station operators in every other suburb. Did anyone ask Buc-ee’s, Sheetz or Wawa? I’m pretty sure both Sunoco’s would be out of business a few months after one of these well run chains moves in.

Now, before you say “how dare you call out a city employee by name as incompetent” and say “Esrati is mean and nasty” let’s be clear, Mr Klein is sitting on over 3441 pieces of real estate- owned by the city- many of which have never had a “For Sale” sign- or “free to a good home” sign on them.

Back in the early 1990’s- I had a client who wanted to be a developer in Dayton- I won a AAF Gold medal for his branding- Envision Dayton, and he had done a public records request asking what fallow real estate the city owned. He got back a 6″ tall stack of green bar printer paper with every line a property parcel. The city has been taking stock out of taxation and sitting on it- with no action plan to sell it or market it for decades. This is not a new problem.

When the city gave away the Stuart Patterson Recreation Center in Old North Dayton for $30K to the Turkish Community- no one asked us, and there was never an RFP process- same went for the Bomberger Center- which went for the same bargain basement price. There went two places for our kids to go after school and in the summer- and we wonder why we have “problem teens” at the bus terminal?

Klein better be able to show proof that he’s indeed tried to “market” this piece of real estate before he gives it away. Because, he’s setting a horrible example and costing the taxpayers real money.

If you need a refresher on “Dirty Deals Done Dirt Cheap” I still like this video which showcased how Dr. Adil Baguirov (now known as Al Bagiro) sold off the prime real estate of the old Patterson Co-Op to CareSource for at least half of what it was worth.

It’s time for some ‘splainin Keith. And maybe an intervention by the City Commission before this stinker of a deal joins the annals of bad deals for the taxpayers.

And the song for this post: Dirty Deals Done Dirt Cheap