What’s the Story Behind Downtown’s Pretzinger Lane?

One of the shortest streets downtown can be found just across from the south side of the Dayton Arcade.

Pretzinger Lane is a mid-block street that runs only from Fourth to Fifth, and it offers nice vistas as one walks down it but overall is a bit of a curious case.

Why does it exist in this particular location?

In other cases, a former alley could be a good guess, and in downtown Dayton there are blocks that previously had additional connecting streets in between the major ones that changed over time. But here, Pretzinger Lane is a much more recent creation.

It dates to 2002 when the Reibold Building’s parking garage was built, which triggered several changes in the surrounding area for better traffic circulation.

One of these was changing Fifth Street between Main and Wilkinson back to two-way traffic (it had been a one-way at the time).

But the creation of the new one-way southbound street just to the west of the garage was also an important addition, so that “motorists will be able to drive on Pretzinger, then turn left onto Fifth Street to enter the garage” (DDN 7/10/02).

Another good question is why the street was given the name of Pretzinger.

Albert Pretzinger was one of Dayton’s most prominent architects, and the area nearby has several of his buildings, including the Arcade Commercial Building, Dayton Daily News Building, Reibold Building (2nd phase), and a few streets away multiple buildings in the Fire Blocks.

Pretzinger Lane is also interesting for its interactions with the surrounding area aside from traffic flow and parking.

The blog Daytonology wrote about Pretzinger Lane and called it “a good example of how Dayton’s deep blocks offer possibilities for making downtown more ‘interesting’.” It even offered a rendering for housing on the parking lot:

And from the beginning, Pretzinger Lane was also being thought of in conjunction with the Dayton Arcade.

John Gower, then a city planner, said in 2001 that “If the Arcade were to reopen, (the street) would create a straight walk from West Fifth all the way to the Second Street side of the Schuster Center,” the beginning of which is visible below.

“More people beget more people,” Gower added at the time, advocating for a mix of uses including residential and commercial. “Get the doors open” (“The Arcade Question,” DDN, 7/8/01).

And today, over 20 years later, we are only weeks away from the day when the Dayton Arcade’s Third Street doors will again reopen and complete the vision.