Project Aims to Bring Free Concerts, Community to Downtown
There’s major construction underway right in the heart of downtown Dayton, but this particular project isn’t an office building, condos, apartments, or anything similar. Still, advocates believe it will have a major impact on the central business district.
We’re talking about the Levitt Pavilion: a $5 million entertainment venue in the former Dave Hall Plaza park next to the Crowne Plaza Hotel.
The pavilion will be home to 50 annual free concerts supported by the Levitt Foundation, a national organization that has facilitated the creation of similar venues in numerous cities including Los Angeles, Memphis, and Denver.
The initiative got off to a good start, as Dayton was the fastest city to raise the $5 million require to make the project an official “go,” which was achieved in December 2016. Major contributors included the City of Dayton, which kicked in $1 million, CareSource, which donated $750,000, Sinclair Community College, with $250,000, and $100,000 from DP&L.
But after funding was secured, the project hit some delays. The first bid for construction issued by the city received only one response that was $3 million over the estimated cost. But after a rebidding, Dayton-based Shook Construction eventually came in with an acceptable bid, and construction began on January 8.
One of the benefits of the arrangement is that Dayton isn’t alone in funding the operation, as the Levitt Foundation shares in the costs. The Levitt Foundation provided $500,000 out of the initial $5 million in seed money. And after the pavilion’s opening, the foundation will provide $150,000 annually for the first five years in operational support.
But not everyone is so enthusiastic that a new concert pavilion is what downtown Dayton needs. Some have questioned the amount of money being spent to build a music pavilion in a park (Dave Hall Plaza) that already hosts a popular series of free summer concerts.
Others point to existing large music venues nearby, including Riverscape and Island Park, as well as potential competition with the Rose Music Center in Huber Heights and the Fraze Pavilion in Kettering, the latter of which has already recently faced financial problems.
Riverscape is a beautiful outdoor recreation area which also already hosts free concerts during the summer, and it has shown it can accommodate major acts (such as Gaelic Storm at the Celtic Festival). Riverscape was actually looked at as a potential Levitt site, but its lack of “large lawn seating” disqualified it according to Levitt’s criteria. Island Park’s bandshell was built in 1939 and hosted a variety of events for many years before falling on hard times more recently.
The Levitt Pavilion team, however, chose the Dave Hall Plaza site for a reason, and they hope to use the pavilion as a way to inject new life into an area of downtown known as The Nine, named for the surrounding nine-block area containing many vacant and underutilized properties. In addition to the free concerts, the pavilion will also be used for various other purposes, such as “citywide events, festivals, school programs, and community activities.” The local nonprofit tasked with the fundraising explains on their website why this makeover of Dave Hall Plaza Park is necessary:
In its initial years, Dave Hall Plaza was used as a site for several annual outdoor concerts during the summer months. But in recent years, the park has suffered from a lack of consistent programming and general neglect. The park’s design, with its earthen mounds, prohibits clear sight lines to the street, thereby discouraging people’s use of the site and raising safety concerns. What was once conceived as a central gathering place for the city has instead become a forlorn site with little to no activity—a missed opportunity for all Daytonians.
The delay in securing a construction bid put the pavilion a bit behind its original schedule, but it’s still on track to open in Summer of 2018, albeit with a shortened schedule. As of March 1, “the hole has been dug and the foundation of the canopy (wing) was constructed. Next steps will be to pour the concrete on this section. After that the foundation for the stage will start to be constructed.”
If all goes according to plan, downtown Dayton will be getting much more than just another place to see a concert.
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