I’ve always liked this building on West Fifth Street just beyond Ludlow.
It’s exactly the type of smaller commercial structure that has become an endangered species in Dayton due to so much demolition over the years.
(I recently wrote about another rare survivor of the type, the modest 2-story brick commercial structure over on East Third in the Fire Blocks that is currently vacant.)
The structure here at 112-116 W Fifth St (historically numbered as 110-114) is known as the Wise Building, and was built in 1920.
Half of the building was owned by Adam Schantz Jr., the industrialist and brewer who had extensive real estate holdings in the area, including commissioning the Arcade’s Commercial Building, before he passed away only about a year after its construction.
The name comes from the original tenant at 114 West Fifth, the S. Wise Piano Company.
In its early decades the building also housed a variety of small businesses, including that of Robert Levy, a tailor and clothier, the L. C. George wholesale stationery store, a confectionary supplier, and the Harper Studios of Dancing.
In the 1980s and 90s, it was the location of the popular Dragon’s Lair bookstore, which also sold comics and music.
The building also served as a college bookstore, aided by its proximity to Sinclair Community College. It opened as The College Store in 2005 to sell used copies of textbooks and t-shirts to Sinclair students, at the same time as the Tri-College Bookstore offered textbooks used at multiple local institutions right on the other side of Ludlow Street.
Neither of those stores remains today (although the College Store signs do on the side of the building). But the Wise Building is still home to two businesses, the Vintage Barbershop and the newer Rad Vintage store which offers clothing, jewelry, and music.
The second floor of the building is also notable for becoming a very early loft apartment conversion in the early 1990s, a project led by Tom Razauskas, owner of the Frecker Plumbing Co.
An article about the project from 1992 said that at the time greater Downtown Dayton only had two other “big-city-style lofts in old warehouses, stores, or manufacturing space,” the Livery in the Oregon District and the “Blosser Photographic Labs Building” at 136 N St. Clair Street.
Many such projects would follow in the subsequent decade, including the St. Clair Lofts and the Cannery.
These shops are a short walk from all the activity happening at the Dayton Arcade, Deneau Tower, and other redevelopment projects, in an area that I think has the potential to regain its lost role as a more connected and walkable downtown district in the coming years.
Sources
Schantz Held Interest in Much Dayton Real Estate, Dayton Daily News, 1/11/1921
Pioneers with Lofty Ambitions Find Homes in Dayton, Dayton Daily News, 8/25/1992
College Store Opens New Location, Dayton Daily News, 7/16/2005.
Downtown Dayton Historic District, National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form
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