Rezoning sets former Hara site up for future
Council approves the area for specific light industrial uses.
Trotwood City Council this week approved new zoning for Hara Arena property, opening the door to possible light industrial uses on what was once a muchloved Dayton entertainment site.
Council approved the rezoning of the area from recreational to a PUD (planed unit development) that permits specific light industrial uses, said Chad Downing, executive director of the Trotwood Community Improvement Corp.
What happens next will be up to property owner Michael Heitz, who has held the property around 1001 Shiloh Springs Road since before the devastation of last year’s Memorial Day tornadoes.
“Our hope is that with the changing of this (zoning), that will really start to give him (Heitz) the chance to have real looks from companies who would like to locate there,” Downing said. “He has been great to work with. He has been up front about the process and about what the hurdles are.”
Heitz could not be reached for comment Wednesday. He is a member of Tax Redevelopment LLC, a Lexington, Ky.-based developer with a history of finding new uses and possibilities for Dayton properties long past their prime.
Heitz and others have praised the Hara site as being especially promising, with more than 24 acres and a building that covers some 650,000 square feet.
According to a Trotwood staff report to Planning Commission
members, permitted uses for the site include manufacturing, distribution, laboratory uses, with public and professional uses of no less than 10,000 square feet.
Prohibited uses include outdoor storage, including storage of refuse or junk. Storage of semi-trucks or industrial equipment is also prohibited.
Heitz has purchased other local properties — such as the Rita Construction building in North Dayton, a former hotel at Wagner Ford Road off Interstate 75 and the old Executive Lodge at 2401 Needmore Road — in tax lien sales.
Hara closed in 2016 after 50 years as a performance and event locale, taking with it a $36 million annual economic impact and decades of memories. Once owned by the Wampler family, Hara had been the area’s largest event center at one time with a 7,000-seat arena and an assortment of meeting rooms.
By the spring of 2018, Heitz emerged to buy the site via income tax liens.