The Dietz Block, One of Dayton’s Great Corner Buildings

One of Dayton’s best corner commercial buildings can be found at 531 Wayne Ave, the corner of Wayne and Jones.

The structure was built in 1886 for John C. Dietz, who ran a drug store and apothecary on the ground floor with apartments above.

It is a “prime example of the iron front store” featuring cast iron made by McHose and Lyon, whose founder lived just a couple of blocks away and whose work is also still visible in the decorative metalwork and iron fencing throughout the neighborhood.

According to the National Register nomination for the Oregon District, “the charming building sits on a coursed stone foundation with water table of pointed finish stone. The superbly preserved twelve bay façade of the first floor has molded pilasters and a wide molded entablature with rosette decoration at the angle. Six of the window bays have been covered with louvered and panelled scrolls.”

Around the turn of the century Wayne Ave was one of Dayton’s most important thoroughfares (and I recount some of that history in a previous article). Dietz “was considered one of the street’s most successful merchants” and other early tenants in the other storerooms of the Dietz Block included Gitzinger and Company “who specialized in gas grates, mantles, tiles and similar products” (source) as well as H.G. Hueffelman’s shoe shop and Ralph Mer Lublin’s tailor shop” (source). One of Dietz’s sons also ran a plumbing business in the back of the complex; it grew steadily which led to the construction of an additional on the Jones St side.

Dietz died in 1919, and his business was left in trust for two of his minor grandsons. As for the Dietz Block building, it “ordered divided between another grandson, John Wilbur Dietz and a son, Clarence Dietz” (DDN 10/14/19).

In 1925, it was auctioned off in a sheriff’s sale, though it was still all occupied save for one vacant apartment (DDN 5/4/25).

Beginning in 1928, the building housed the Blood Hardware and Supply Company and soon came to be known as the Blood Block. That business occupied it until the early 1970s.

Later the building also housed Norman Miller & Sons Interiors.

It was vacant for many years until it was renovated into Crafted & Cured, a craft beer bar that also offered cured meats which opened in 2016. The bar was later joined by other businesses in the adjacent storefronts that were intended to serve as “a turn of the century style neighborhood market” that would serve the Oregon District, South Park and other nearby areas. Tenants included the Glasz Bleu Oven Mediterranean restaurant and Jack Lukey’s Oyster Saloon and Caviar Bar.

Crafted & Cured closed in spring 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and was initially reported to be moving to the Dayton Arcade, but it instead moved to a new location in downtown Troy.

As for the Dietz Block, no signage is currently present on the corner building which appears to be being used for storage. The adjacent restaurant rooms still have tables but don’t appear to have reopened since the pandemic according to social media posts. Some Glasz Bleu Oven signage is still present on the windows, but the future of the building is uncertain after the anchor tenant’s departure.

Update 8/2024: According to a Dayton Daily News article, a South Park couple has purchased the building and is planning a mixed-use development with ground-floor retail and a restaurant and apartments above.