The sale would be for 350,000 square feet of vacant industrial space on 24.4 acres of land south of U.S. 35 in the Miami Chapel neighborhood, according to city documents.
McCall’s plant in Dayton at one point was the largest of its kind under one roof and one of the city’s largest employers. It covered an area of more than 400,000 square feet.
By the early 1960s the plant was printing everything from dress patterns to nearly 50 magazines, including McCall’s, Newsweek, Red Book and Popular Science. The plant never shut down, running 24 hours, 7 days a week.
Phoenix Dayton is associated with Phoenix Investors LLC, which is based in Milwaukee, Wis.
The firm has a portfolio of more than 11 million square feet of commercial space spread across 19 states, according to its Facebook Page. This will be the firm’s first investment in Ohio.
“The project represents a significant new investment in West Dayton,” Ford Weber, Dayton’s director of economic development, wrote in a memo to the city manager.
Phoenix specializes in revitalizing underutilized industrial properties, and the firm has the capital and experience needed to renovate the facility, according to the memo.
The Dayton facility, in Westview Industrial Park, has been a popular target of metal thieves: more than $500,000 worth of copper wiring, pipes and other materials were stolen from the property early last year.
The building has deteriorated owing to deferred maintenance and vandalism, which made it difficult to attract a new tenant or owner, Weber said.
The city acquired the McCall property in 2001 and helped demolish most of the printing plant.
In 2005, SOS Metals agreed to occupy the remaining facility to use as a steel processing plant. But the property has been vacant since 2010.
Process Equipment Co. of Tipp City proposed consolidating its operations at the McCall site in 2013, but then cancelled its plans.
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