A former industrial building in the Riverdale neighborhood of Dayton is currently listed at auction online. The minimum bid is $123,334 and it has a Buy It Now price of $525,000.
The auction page also cites a Zestimate for the building of $338,100 and a previous listing for the building at $675,000.
The building is a 4-story brick warehouse. One page gives a construction date of 1910 but another document says it was “built pre 1900.”
One of its very first tenants in the 1910s was the Dayton Body Co, who in 1917 offered the factory for rent at 5c per foot per year.
The following year the Underwood-Talmage Co had begun manufacturing candy in the building.
And by 1931 the firm had become “Dayton’s largest firm engaged in the making of quality candies.”
Underwood-Talmage produced “everything from hard candies and nickel bars to high-grade chocolate confections” while promising that “scrupulous care is used throughout the Underwood-Talmage plant in scientific cooking and cleanliness.”
At the time the company delivered its candy to over 1,800 dealers, both locally and as far as 60 miles from Dayton.
Its slogan was “Good Candy–Good Candy, Only” (DDN 2/21/31 and 10/31/31).
But just 4 years later, all the assets of the company including candy making machinery, office fixtures, electric motors, and more, were sold at a receiver’s sale (DDN 3/23/1935). (It’s worth noting that in a social media post, a former resident of Geyer St recalled a confectionery with the UT name distributing candy both locally and nationwide into the 1960s.)
By the 1950s, 620 Geyer St was a furniture warehouse, and it suffered a fire in 1953 that caused $35,000 in damage (DDN 5/11/1953).
A few years later it had become home to the Gahris Moving and Storage Co, which was an agent for North American Van Lines, Inc. (DDN 8/30/57). And then for many years it was Cummings Moving and Storage until 2020 when the building was sold.
The auction page also notes that the City of Dayton planning department supports the building’s redevelopment, and a rough conceptual drawing is also included.
The auction runs until January 14, 2025 and viewing dates are offered on Wednesday, 1/8 and Saturday, 1/11 from 11am to 12pm.
This just shows how much untapped potential is in the city of Dayton. I can imagine a mixed use redevelopment project, with shops on the bottom and housing on the other three floors. A former candy factory is a perfect theme.
Agreed! There is so much potential all around the city. I would love to see a redevelopment like that for this building. I’ll definitely post an update if I can figure out what happened in the auction and if there are any plans moving forward.