Hollywood Gaming racino to expand
Hollywood Gaming at Dayton Raceway has started work on a $3.1 million expansion that will increase the size of its smoking area and will add a few dozen video lottery terminals.
Preliminary construction work began this month to add about 4,700 square feet of space in the northeast corner of the racino facility at 777 Hollywood Blvd.
The inside of the facility is smoke-free, but the outdoor smoking patio will be expanded, said Bob Tenebaum, an Ohio spokesperson for Penn National Gaming, which operates Dayton’s raceway.
Hollywood Gaming will be adding about 42 video lottery terminals in the space, increasing the total number of terminals in the facility to 1,054, Tenebaum said.
The new space is expected to open in the fourth quarter of this year.
Rapid Fired Pizza to open in Kroger
Rapid Fired Pizza will open its first and only Dayton-area Kroger-based store later this year.
The Kroger at Austin Landing in Miami Twp. will open its Rapid Fired Pizza restaurant around the end of September, said Kelly Gray, co-founder of Rapid Fired Pizza. The popular and growing chain will open a total 10 stores inside Kroger delis during its initial trial phase, but all aside from the Austin Landing location, all will be in the Cincinnati market.
“Based on our existing coverage in the market, we don’t have a lot of gaps in the coverage (in Dayton), but Austin Landing was one of them,” Gray said. “Most of the rest of our Rapid Fireds ... inside Kroger’s are going to be in the Cincinnati market, and then possibly expanding into the Kentucky markets and into Columbus.”
Rapid Fired had been trying to get into Austin Landing previously, Gray said, but they hadn’t been able to work anything out with the shopping center.
“We love the daytime population of Austin Landing and, of course, it’s an extremely busy Kroger for residential shopping,” she said.
The chain that can cook pizzas in 180 seconds was already working on a take-and-bake form of the pizza before, but the Kroger partnership sped up the development. The buy and bake at home Rapid Fired pizzas are soon to hit shelves of traditional Kroger stores without Rapid Fired locations in an upcoming pilot, Gray said.
Partnering with Kroger will give Rapid Fired a chance to expand its footprint, Gray said. The only difference between a typical standalone Rapid Fired store and those in a Kroger is that the Kroger version won’t sell salads.
“We are always looking to help customers find new, simple answers to the questions ‘What’s for dinner?’,” said Erin Rolfes, spokeswoman for Kroger’s Cincinnati-Dayton Division. Mt. Orab was the first to open. Kroger-based Rapid Fired locations also opened in Corryville last week and will open in Oakley later this month. The Austin Landing location will open at the end of September.
Rapid Fired also recently signed a lease for 3,300 square feet of space at 1200 Brown St., planning to open by the end of September as well, Gray said.
“We have been looking for a location on Brown Street since we opened our first Rapid Fired in 2015 and the opportunity finally came up so we jumped on it,” Gray said.
The location will have a self pour alcohol system and will employ 20 to 30 people. Renovations will cost about $100,000.
Kohl’s begins hiring for seasonal positions
More than four months before the biggest shopping holiday of the year, Kohl’s is already looking for seasonal employees.
Kohl’s is beginning to hire seasonal positions for the holidays during the last half of the year at 500 stores, including the Beavercreek and Centerville locations, a spokeswoman told the Dayton Daily News.
The department store will begin hiring seasonal workers for stores, distribution centers and fulfillment operations in August and will continue through the holiday season, according to a statement.
Kohl’s is also hiring 3,000 workers to support in-store omnichannel process, according to the release.
Anyone interested in the jobs can apply on KohlsCareers.com/ OurJobs.
The early hiring push comes during a time of low unemployment where economists say everyone who wants a job has one. It has been difficult for companies to find workers, which has sparked retailers to hire for major events earlier and offer more benefits.
Coffee shop opens at Dayton library
The main branch of the Dayton Metro Library has a new tenant serving up coffee and more.
Coffee Hub, a Xenia-based business, is now open Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Main Library, 215 E. Third St. in downtown Dayton.
Coffee Hub has coffee, soda, snacks, pastries, sandwiches and box lunches, according to a release, and plans to expand options in the coming weeks.
Among the items currently being served are a variety of coffee drinks, homemade cinnamon rolls with cream cheese icing, apple fritters, hamburgers and a quiche of the day.
Cynthia Stemple opened the Coffee Hub in Xenia, 81 E. Main St., in July 2017, according to the company’s website. Recently a second location opened at 3375 Dayton Xenia Road in Beavercreek.
Company adding space at Mound park
Miamisburg-based photonic innovation company Excelitas Technologies is expanding its operations at the Mound Business Park.
The company has been at the Mound Business Park for more than 25 years and recently signed a 10-year lease for an additional 38,000 square feet, according to a statement. The extra office space is needed to meet demand for the company’s energetic safety systems, said Doug Benner, executive vice president of defense and aerospace and Excelitas.
Focused on delivering photonic solutions to meet the lighting, optronics, detection and optical technology needs of global customers, Excelitas has 180 employees and is growing, according to the release. It is the largest employer at the Mound.
“We are grateful for the continued support that the Mound Development Corporation, the city of Miamisburg, Montgomery County, and the state of Ohio have provided to Excelitas, enabling us to support our customers’ growing needs,” Benner said. “We just celebrated 25 years as a commercial business entity in Miamisburg, and I look forward to calling Miamisburg home to the Excelitas Defense and Aerospace Strategic Business Unit and Energetic Systems Business Unit for many years in the future.”
Construction on Excelitas’s new office space is expected to begin in August and finish during the summer of 2020.
Shopping center on auction block
The Kettering shopping center that is home to St. Francis Thrift Store, Big Lots and Skyline Chili will go up for auction next month.
The roughly 118,000-squarefoot Wilmington Plaza shopping center at 2724 through 2852 Wilmington Pike will be put on the online auction block Aug. 12 through Aug. 14. The starting bid is $900,000 and the participation deposit is $10,000, according to Ten-X, an online commercial real estate auction company.
The shopping center is 98.3 percent occupied, according to the listing. Tenants include Skyline, Big Lots, St. Francis Thrift Store, Discount Fashion Warehouse, Diplomat Lounge, Advance America and Murphy’s Used Books and Media.
More than a third of the tenants have been at the property for more than 20 years, according to the listing.
Produce stands open in Dayton hospitals
Two Dayton hospitals now have produce stands provided by Homefull, a nonprofit that serves the homeless.
Miami Valley Hospital celebrated last week the grand opening of a Homefull produce stand, which sells fresh fruits and vegetables in the hospital main lobby. The stand is open 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. each Friday in the Old Main Lobby/Employee Entrance.
Homefull also just opened a fresh produce stand in Grandview Medical Center’s lobby. It will be open at Grandview each Tuesday from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
The Homefull farm stand will sell produce from Homefull’s urban farms and other local growers.
Tina Patterson, Homefull CEO, said in an announcement about the Grandview stand that Homefull’s farm stands “also help provide training and jobs to our persons served. Purchases will support our programs, ultimately addressing our goals of increasing and improving housing, food and jobs.”
Realtors add $200K to mortgage, rent relief fund for tornado victims
Ohio Realtor organizations have received another $200,000 to distribute to local families impacted by the Memorial Day tornadoes.
Dayton Realtors in collaboration with Ohio Realtors and the Midwestern Ohio Association in Mercer County originally started offering funds to tornado victims for mortgage payments on a damaged residence or rent at an apartment while displaced by the 15 tornadoes that impacted thousands in the Miami Valley. The original funds were supplied by a $300,000 grant from the National Association of Realtors.
Dayton Realtors learned Tuesday that the National Board of Realtors would provide an additional $200,000 to the Ohio Realtors Housing Disaster Relief Fund, said Dayton Realtors spokesman Bob Jones.
“Dayton’s been devastated by not one tornado but multiple tornadoes, in an unusual event, and many, many of our neighbors and friends, and businesses and community leaders have been rendered homeless, without places to go to work, without places to seek shelter,” said Ohio Realtors President Anjanette Frye in June.
Since it began June 6, the Disaster Relief Fund has provided more than $282,000 to 410 tornado victims. Each household can receive up to $1,000. The deadline to apply is Aug. 16.
The National Association of Realtors Housing Disaster Relief Fund grants must be given to people who live in places that are considered in a state of emergency, including those in Montgomery, Greene and Mercer counties.
But Ohio Realtors have worked to raise additional funds for those that may not qualify for the Disaster Relief Fund money, including those hit in Miami County or who need funds for an insurance deductible rather than mortgage or rent.