The potential redevelopment of the site around the former Zion Baptist Church has the potential to significantly enhance the gateway to the Wright-Dunbar neighborhood, a key connection between downtown and West Dayton.
But there’s another site in between that corner and where the West Third Street business district currently begins which could also be transformational for the area.
The San Marco project has been in the works for over 5 years, but it’s still in the planning and fundraising stage and despite some progress, it’s currently unclear how close it is to truly beginning.
The site is the former West Side Chevy building at 800 West Third Street. It was built in 1926 and was also known as the Central Motors Building. A 1927 city directory listed it as selling “Oldsmobiles, Sedans, Coupes, Touring Cars and Roadsters, plus providing sales and service” from the building and it remained in the auto industry for decades.
One interesting feature is that it apparently had a “giant ramp that went from the back of the main level of the showroom to a service department on the second story.”
An article quoted someone saying “I still to this day have never seen another dealership with a service department on the second floor.”
The building was bought in December 2019 under the name of San Marco LLC. In early 2020 an article announced it “will be transformed into a mixed-use facility featuring apartments, retail and parking.” Planning and design was done and the developers had “multiple letters of intent from local establishments” and was said to take “18-24 months to complete.”
The COVID pandemic certainly complicated the project, which eventually popped back up in the planning phases again a couple years later. By 2024, more official plans were submitted to the city, which were approved in November.
The plan involves building two mixed-use buildings totaling 156,000 sq ft, incorporating the West Side Chevy building and the vacant lot to the east. It would preserve the industrial façade to become part of a 95,000-square-foot, six-story structure.
The second building would be five stories tall, and “the buildings will have brick exteriors on the first two floors and panels on the upper levels, which means they will have elements that look both historic and modern. There would be 125 residential units, 75 in the auto building and 49 in the new build.
Along the way, “some community members and stakeholders raised concerns about the amount of parking provided and the heights of the buildings.”
San Marco has proposed to create some off-street parking at a nearby lot, so hopefully this does not prove to be a stumbling block, especially given that the immediate area has lost so much of its urban fabric and population over the years so ample space should be able to be created.
Around that same time, developer John Lumpkin said “we’ve been working on this thing for four years, so it’s a long haul and a tough job … We’re still plugging along, because we’re doing it ourselves and we don’t have a whole bunch of help.”
He added that San Marco LLC “is comprised a small group of local investors.”
In 2025, U.S. Rep. Mike Turner, who also came up in relation to the roundhouse earlier, submitted a $5.2 million funding request to the House Committee on Appropriations for capital improvements of community spaces on W 3rd which “would go towards key infrastructure improvements at Sunrise Park and the development of the adjoining San Marco Dayton building.”
Turner said “This project is an appropriate use of taxpayer funds because it will remove blight, repurpose underuse properties, and attract new housing and business investment to strengthen Dayton’s economic condition.”
The latest updates said there is no definite timeline to get financing in place, but the hope is the project will get started next year.
I saw that in January 2026, San Marco Dayton LLC applied to fund $5 million of what was said to be $30 million project through the Dayton Regional Priority Development and Advocacy Committee.
It was listed as a priority project, meaning it is among the “top projects that will make the most significant impact in the Dayton region.
But the process is still ultimately just a recommendation for funding so this will be an interesting one to keep tabs on this year.
I had wondered what happened to this grand idea from several years ago! Hey, and to whoever the comment came from about the service ramp over the showroom floor being unique – this was commonplace back in the day, and Dayton still features a full service dealership with functional service ramps upstairs at White Allen Chevy on North Main St!