The Fate of the Ecki Building

Most debates over historic preservation versus demolition in Dayton center around its larger and most important structures: the downtown Arcade with its iconic rotunda, the Centre City Building, and the like. But sometimes, battles over less significant buildings that aren’t on the National Register spark just as much, if not more, passion. One example from not long ago is the Ecki Building.

The Ecki Building was built by Dayton attorney W. H. H. Ecki in 1929 at the northeast corner of Wayne and Wyoming. Its style has been described as “an expression of the Spanish Colonial revival applied to the arcaded commercial block popularized after California’s Pan-American exposition of 1915.” This was notable as Spanish commercial architecture was rare in Dayton. The Ecki Building’s red tile roof was a prominent sign of Spanish influence, while its “trio of arched windows separated by twisting columns” was a Moorish feature.

The Ecki’s retail tenants were diverse over the years, including pharmacies, laundromats, grocery stores, beauty parlors, a tea company, and many more. Its second floor contained seven apartments. The building remained well-occupied until the 1990s when a few of the retail shops left. It suffered damage in a October 2000 fire, at which point it was completely vacated. The Ecki Building soon became a symbol of our diverging opinions over how to treat our aging urban spaces in changing times. Preservation Dayton wrote that in the mid to late 2000s, the building sat “at a crossroads, philosophically as well as physically.”

Whatever fate, it will continue to reflect America’s attitude toward our urban landscape. The building may soon be demolished to become another statistic in bulldozing the past. Or it may be saved and refurbished, to carry on the revitalization of neighborhood small business in the inner city.

The battle over the Ecki was said to be a “nearly decade-long saga that pitted preservationists against developers.” If you’ve been to Wayne and Wyoming in recent years, you know the end result as the building is clearly not around anymore. But how we got there is an interesting story.

Soon after the 2000 fire, the Ecki’s owner submitted a plan to demolish the building and replace it with a White Castle restaurant. The city, which took an interest due to the fact that Wayne and Wyoming is a prominent intersection, opposed that plan, favoring repair and reuse of the structure. At the time hundreds of citizens signed a petition supporting saving the building.

Later on the scope of the proposed project shifted significantly to a new development anchored by a large Kroger that would occupy a three block area. This time the city was on board, and for the plan to get off the ground a large number of residential properties would have to be acquired to assemble the development site. A staff member of Preservation Dayton has called that process “a case study of what not to do.” It involved multiple rounds of negotiating options to buy the affected properties, and even formally designating the neighborhood as “blighted” in an attempt to allow eminent domain. (Note: see comments below as no eminent domain was used)

While this was happening, proposals to save the Ecki Building and incorporate it into an urban-style Kroger store went nowhere. As a result, preservationists complained about the generic suburban style of the proposed development: drab single-story storefronts set far back into a sea of asphalt.

Interestingly, these pleas for preservation did little to win over an important constituency: residents actually living in the Twin Towers neighborhood near the struggling corner of Wayne and Wyoming, on average a lower income area than the nearby historic district neighborhoods. These citizens weren’t swayed by arguments about urban building form and historic value; they wanted anything that would bring new amenities to their neighborhood. And the failed process to assemble the site also did no favors to these residents:

Twin Towers Neighborhood Association President Leslie Sheward said people who live behind the Ecki Building were frustrated by the uncertainty over the years. Many saw no reason to invest in the upkeep of their properties because they expected their homes to be sold and razed. “The whole area has gotten more blighted than the rest of the neighborhood, because of the disinvestment,” according to Sheward.

Then in December 2008, Kroger pulled out of the project, citing economic difficulties (edit: and worries over the ability of the city and developer to make it happen. The following year the City of Dayton bought the Ecki Building for $818,000, and without Kroger or any other big prospective tenant, its future was uncertain again.

At this point some might say “who cares?” These random two-story buildings in various neighborhoods aren’t nearly as significant as, say, the Dayton Arcade or Roosevelt High School.

Preservationists would respond that these types of everyday “vernacular” buildings are what give a city its unique character, and after several disastrous decades of large-scale demolitions for parking lots, highways, and more, cities like Dayton are clinging on to so little of a once impressive urban fabric that buildings like the Ecki become just as important as the most historically significant structures.

“When we lose any parts of (our urban fabric), we lose a part of ourselves as a community,” says the president of Savannah GA’s historic foundation. “That sort of little by little erosion is dangerous.” A concise way to put it is that “the city just can’t take any more abuse.”

This can be a forward-thinking position too, in that for a place like Dayton to fully rebound and attract new residents, it needs to hang on to what remains of its historic character, which differentiates it from the interchangeable suburban-style spaces that compete with the city core (a healthy core being crucial for any successful metro area). The author of Detroit Urbanism explains this further:

No other factor contributes more to a city’s beauty, liveliness, and functionality than the physical layout of its buildings, streets, and blocks. To spend time in a well-designed public space–be it in a big city neighborhood or a small town main street–is uniquely rewarding. What specific features do great towns and cities share? First, they require density–not necessarily to the same degree as Manhattan, obviously, but closeness between people and amenities is the reason why cities exist. An unbroken continuity of buildings encloses a street and gives it a sense of place. Healthy neighborhoods contain buildings of a variety of uses–different types of businesses with different hours attract people throughout the day. Ideally, these buildings are of a mixture of ages, and include many old ones … It’s these little buildings, not the megaprojects, that make a city.

But on the corner of Wayne and Wyoming in Dayton, it was not to be. The Ecki Building was torn down on March 29, 2011 at a cost of $95,000. Despite its status as a contributing structure to the South Park Historic District, the demolition was allowed as part of the FHA’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

As for the decade-long “battle” between preservationists and developers, both sides have somehow managed to lose as the site remains a vacant lot to this day. Despite promises of a new plan for the corner after the Kroger fell through, nothing has materialized in the years since.

Edit: See comments below for some clarifications from the project manager for the Kroger development.

Some shots of the Ecki Building when it was still around (click around a bit and the Streetview will eventually move ahead in time, effectively demolishing the building again.):

Image credit Google Streetview