Sale of tower good for city
Reporter Thomas Gnau broke the news that Kettering Tower, the city’s tallest building, was sold to Stratacache.
The Dayton company is known around the world for the digital signage, monitors and customer-immersive technologies it creates for fast-food restaurants and other industries.
Dayton officials are praising the purchase because it puts the building under local ownership. For years, the building has been owned by outside investment firms and the biggest complaint was these companies did not reinvest back into Kettering Towers.
Tower Partners LLC, based in New York, bought the property in May 2012 for $6.4 mil
lion. Last week, the limited liability company sold the building that was built in 1971 for $13 million.
The other good news on the sale is that Stratacache is making Kettering Tower its headquarters. Stratacache is a growing company with expectations to become a $1 billion business. That’s the kind of company Dayton needs anchoring downtown.
Some interesting facts Gnau
found about the building: ■ The 30-story tower was originally the Winters Bank Tower.
■ It has its own ZIP Code: 45423.
■ Builders poured more than 3,400 cubic yards of concrete to form the foundation and bolted together 4,000 tons of steel.
■ The exterior is bronzed anodized aluminum with bronze solar glass panels.
■ The complex is 500,000 square feet, about 12 acres.
Mathile, others honored
The Dayton Development Coalition honored Clay Mathile — former CEO and owner of the Iams Company — with the 2018 Maureen Patterson Regional Leader Award last week at its annual meeting.
Mathile was one of the first employees of the Iams Company, and bought it from the owner in the early 1980s. In 1999, the Mathile family sold Iams to international conglomerate Procter & Gamble for $2.3 billion. Mathile founded Aileron in 1996, while still owning Iams, as the Center for Entrepreneurial Education. Its mission was to function as a local outreach in response to the declining automotive and manufacturing industries in the Dayton region.
Mathile also is the founder of Tipp City-based Aileron. He and his wife also launched the Mathile Family Foundation and The Glen at St. Joseph.
The award was named after Maureen Patterson in 2013 after she retired from the Dayton Development Coalition. Patterson spent her career lifting up business owners and corporations in the Miami Valley.
The coalition also presented
three other awards:
■ AMB Surgical won the Entrepreneurial Startup award.
■ Chewy Inc. won the Leading Job Creator award.
■ Crown Equipment won the Project of the Year award.
Valentine’s Day spending
Love is apparently not enough when it comes to Valentine’s Day.
This year, the average person is expected to spend $161.96, according to a survey by the personal-finance website WalletHub.
It found four in 10 people say irresponsible spending is a bigger turnoff than bad breath.
Yet, we spend $3.9 billion on jewelry, $1.9 billion on flowers and $1.8 billion on candy.
Most of that spending is coming from men, given they spent nearly twice as much as women on average for Valentine’s Day in 2018.
The survey broke it down to $196 spent by men versus $100 spent by women.
Rich Gillette is the Dayton Daily News business editor. Contact him at rich.gillette@ coxinc.com or on Twitter @ richgillette.