First Big Tenant signs at Ballpark Village; Mead Tower Owners Not Smiling

This story began with an article in the DBJ in which Thompson Hine – Dayton’s largest law firm – was thinking about possibly relocating to Ballpark Village if in fact that development were to come to fruition.  Well, it didn’t take long for them to go from thinking about it to actually signing a letter of intent…

Dayton Daily News
Link: Law firm signs letter of intent for space at Ballpark Village

Law firm Thompson Hine has signed a letter of intent to lease office space at Ballpark Village.

The firm said it is the largest tenant to agree to take office space at the development at Monument Avenue and Riverside Drive.

By March 2009, the 110-employee firm will occupy the entire top floor of a new office building at Ballpark Village. The firm will also occupy part of the floor immediately below, taking a total of 45,489 square feet, the firm said.

This is some bittersweet news (as Phillip over at The Gem City blog says), as it means that Ballpark Village is a step closer to reality, but at the expense of yet another large business moving out of the Mead Tower (now called 10 West 2nd).  In fact, that means that Dayton’s second largest building will pretty much go completely dark since MeadWestVaco (the only other large tenant) has already left.  (CareSource is taking up several floors on a temporary basis until their new building is finished next year.)  That is scary and sad, but it also means that there is opportunity to get new businesses in there.  A big issue with 10 West 2nd is the parking garage across Ludlow – which is run down and not very secure.  While the city is building a new parking garage on Main it should really look at doing what needs to be done to bring the Ludlow garage back to life. 

It is also interesting that the DDN article noted that the new office building for Thompson Hine would be the first to be built in BPV.  It sure sounds like there is a lot of news coming out about new developments in the BPV saga as of late – hopefully it is a sign that this pipe dream of a development is actually going to happen.