Caresource vs the Tissue Center: Downtown Floorplates

Apparently another company is leaving downtown for the suburbs. That blood and tissue place on Main between the railroad embankment and the interstate is going to build an 80,000 SF building at Research Park.

This has generated an interesting thread at Dayton Most Metro about downtown locations for business, and that apparently this company was in negotiation for a larger site downtown but opted instead for a campus setting.

Could a 80,000 SF building be accommodated in the center city. The following investigates just how big this is, both a one story pancake building and a two story solution.




It seems both approaches are do-able, if not in downtown proper certainly in the empty acres surrounding the central business district.

Fitting the two floorplates in Research Park; no problem. Lost is space



An alternatie is Caresource. This is a company that made a compromise with a tight downtown site and the pancake building floorplate.

Disassembling the Caresource floorplate into parking and office/mechanical space..the curved “tower part” and a larger two story base”



....And reassembling them into a “campus solution” of two and three story buildings, perhaps like Lexis Nexis, but downtown. This was actually done in Toledo with Owens Cornings' "Middlegrounds" headquarters (on an old railroad yard site, I think), and ConAgra's Omaha HQ, where they tore down that citys’ warehouse district (Jobbers Canyon) to build a suburban campus downtown.



Good thing Caresource didn't do that, but we would have supported them if they had wanted to, right?

In any case, here's a comparison showing that the Caresource building is a neat comprise as it's not as skinny as the newer high-rises, providing a floorplate that is almost double that of a typical modern Dayton skyscraper, but designed well enough so the building doesn't look "fat".



Dayton lucked-out with Caresource.