Preservation Dayton, Inc. (PDI) accepts nominations for outstanding individuals businesses, or organizations that have contributed to PDI’s mission to promote, protect, and enhance greater Dayton’s architectural heritage, its setting, and its contributions to the region’s quality of life.

These awards recognize and celebrate historic preservation leaders in the following categories: 

• Dayton historic neighborhoods—Recognizes an outstanding preservationist in each of Dayton’s officially designated historic neighborhoods
• At-large—Outstanding preservationist(s) for the greater Dayton region
• Lifetime achievement—A major contributor to preservation causes over multiple decades

​Criteria: Each award recognizes creative, inspirational leaders whose efforts have contributed to the protection, renovation, and revitalization of historic neighborhoods, individual structures, or strengthened the historic preservation movement or the quality of life in Dayton’s historic communities. Awards may celebrate neighborhood and community leaders, business owners and businesses, nonprofit organizations, government leaders, journalists and other dedicated individuals who have succeeded in protecting Dayton’s historic architecture and built environment.

Lifetime achievement award - 2024

John Gower

A life-long Daytonian, urban designer & planner, community-builder, and historic preservationist, John Gower’s creativity, dedication, and perseverance inspires us all to make Dayton a better place to live.

Like his place-making soulmates and fellow “Dayton Walk of Fame” recipients, Jean Woodhull and Alice Woodward, John has never sought credit or recognition for his ideas, sweat equity, and devotion to our city.

John received his “Placemaking Engineering” degree at the University of Cincinnati’s School of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning. As Dayton’s population moved to the suburbs, John and his classmate Jeff Wray drove back to Dayton throughout the week to board up abandoned houses in the Dayton View neighborhood where John grew up and still lives. With a background in architecture and planning, John devoted his career as Dayton’s Downtown Urban Design & Planner and the Director of Community Development and is now the Urban Design Director for CityWide Development Corporation.

In addition to his day job, John created and led the non-profit Living City Project, at Ludlow and East Fifth Street from 1988–1995. But the Living City Project was much more than a location. John’s vision ignited the future potential of downtown Dayton when few had hope for our declining city. Here’s just a few ways John’s creativity and resourcefulness and the Living City Project engaged our community to believe in a better future. Traveling side-walk cafes popped up when there was absolutely no outdoor dining in the city and “pop-ups” weren’t even a thing. Historic photographs appeared magically at their original locations to inspire a more livable, greener, and welcoming city, like Metroparks’ beautiful cascading water features inspired by the Miami-Erie Canal locks and the historic fountains and gardens that once lined Patterson Boulevard. “Talking Building Tours” made our architectural treasures come alive to tell us what they had to say about our past and our future And an inspiring speaker and movie series at the Neon and Dayton Art Institute (CityShape/City Scape 1986–1990) featured internationally recognized urbanists like William (Holly) Whyte, Jane Jacobs, and others to educate us on why place-making is essential to the heart beat of a city. Without a doubt, John’s Living City Project was a catalyst for the downtown Renaissance we are experiencing today.

But there’s more. Because of John’s vision and collaboration:
—two National Register historic facades were saved and integrated into the RTA center and now grace the corner of Third and Main
—the RTA also renovated the Romanesque church at West Third and Edwin C. Moses as the RTA Community Center
—the “Decoding Dayton” youtube series of more than 15 videos uncovers fascinating and beautiful historic buildings and areas of our city
—and Private Fair, the Civil War Union soldier’s statue, was moved from the north bank of the Miami River back to its original location at Main Street and Monument Avenue. John hopes the Civil War-era statue is a daily reminder of the healing and “fairness”; still needed in the greater Dayton community. The relocation of Private Fair back to Main Street triggered the Main Street streetscape overhaul of 1992/93, which resulted in the removal of two traffic lanes being replaced with streetscape.

And then there’s John undying faith and devotion to seeing the Arcade brought back to life. He, along with fellow PDI Life-time Achievement recipient, Dave Williams, worked diligently to attract viable developers and investors to revitalize this irreplaceable landmark. And again behind the scenes, Johnworked diligently and mostly single-handedly to clean gutters and stop the water damage in the massive nine-building complex—until Cross Street Partners, the Model Group, and McCormack Baron Salazar renovated and opened the landmark in 2019 after it was shuttered for 30 years.

John also led efforts to preserve Dayton’s historic residential neighborhoods and the architectural heritage of our city. John’s work as a city planner, under the direction of Paul Woodie, and as Director of Community Development, helped to create and support Dayton’s Historic District Zoning. Today, 13 locally designated historic districts and 70 local landmarks are protected from demolition without review and approval from the Landmarks Commission. And our city’s thriving historic districts have seen a 122 percent increase in property values compared to .07 percent in non-historic districts from 1996-2022.

As the Director of Planning from 2001 to 2011, John advanced and oversaw the overhaul and replacement of the auto/suburban zoning code that was adopted in the 1960’s. From 2003 to 2006 (under the steady hand of Aaron Sorrell), a new place and form-based code was shaped and adopted. It is was/is a key pivot in that the Code embedded place-based urban design principles and policies to ensure that – going forward – Dayton would have institutionalized place-based principles and context-sensitive in the form of a code that carried forward the Urban Design Guidelines that were adopted in the 1990’s (and are still in place as planning policy today).

On a personal level, John also “walks-the-talk” of place-making and saving Dayton’s unique historic neighborhoods. John continues to live in the Dayton View Historic District where he was raised. His home is a stellar example of a beautifully restored Classic Queen Anne. Don’t miss John as he shares his historic home repair advice in Preservation Dayton’s “How to Renovate Right” video series.

John Gower’s place-making ethic and creative vision have truly made our community and our region a better place. John definitely deserves to be honored with Preservation Dayton’s Life-time Achievement Award.

 Lifetime achievement award - 2022

David Williams
Dayton Arcade and Much Mor​e!

In the mid-80’s, David Williams, as a recent college graduate in the design and construction field, became engaged with the Living City Project imagining how the best of the past could come back to life. This was only the beginning of a lifetime commitment to historic preservation using a mastery of advocacy, innovative design, financial creativity, and persistent tenacity.

Dayton was truly fortunate when Dave’s family moved to Oakwood from Pittsburgh when he was in the fifth grade. Dave’s commitment to historic preservation began with Dayton’s first ever urban loft living space, The Lofts on St. Clair. Here, he and his wife Susan began their family with the birth of their first daughter. Dave’s early influences came from time spent with family in Savannah, Georgia with Aunt Suzie and Uncle Nick and their friends the Adler’s. Lee (former Board Member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation) and Emma Adler and Nick and Suzie Williams were instrumental in resetting Savannah’s downtown, saving Savannah’s great historic fabric and the many squares and parks guarded by the amazing live oaks at every corner

They then moved to St Anne’s Hill where they restored their own home and several others in the neighborhood including 144 LaBelle, 601 McClain, and 228 Henry Street. But Dave has always been much more than a renovator of historic buildings. He is a creative community-builder and passionate space-maker. In St. Anne’s, the Williams were noted for their large neighborhood dinner parties. A non-functioning kitchen under renovation was no problem. They just washed piles of dishes in the bathtub. Dave is also known for coming up with creative acronyms and marketing concepts. It was in St. Anne’s where he created the progressive PPD’s—Porch, Patio, and Deck Progressive parties that gathered neighbors and friends from the suburbs together to enjoy their historic neighborhood while promoting downtown housing and living.

After his pioneering adaptive reuse with the downtown Lofts on St Clair, Dave took on an even more visionary project, The Cannery Apartments at East Third and Wayne Avenue. He also undertook this project simultaneously with the development of the Second Street market. All of these projects required both good design and creative financing to overcome bankers who were concerned about speculative investments in a dying downtown. And Dave delivered on every one of these challenging fronts.

The Lofts on St Clair required a commitment from a eight financial institutions for a modest size development of six residential units and three ground-level commercial spaces.

Just a couple of blocks away was one of Dayton’s best stands of late 1800’s warehouse buildings in a traditional manufacturing part of Dayton. Dave with his business partners Beth Duke and Stephen Greer took on an even more visionary project, “The Cannery” at 500 East Third. This group of 7 warehouse buildings total 250,000 sf. included 156 loft apartments, 40,000 sf of commercial space and 135 parking spaces, moved loft housing to the next stage. The Cannery, at the other end of the scale, required a unique public-private partnership, and Dave was successful in securing the first loan from the National Trust for Historic Preservation ever provided to a private sector developer.

Right from the beginning, Dave has never been your typical hands-off developer. With each of these projects, Dave was at the forefront contributing his own sweat-equity and talent for energizing community support. For example, while the farmers’ market was at the Cannery Warehouse at Fourth and Wayne, Dave and Beth were up every single Saturday morning for two years at five a.m. to make sure vendors were happy and the market was a success. This success, thanks to their hard work, influenced National City Bank to buy naming rights and invest in the historic tax credits. Five Rivers MetroParks provided the funding for the conversion of former deteriorated Baltimore & Ohio outbound freight house which our entire region enjoys today as the Second Street Public Market.

At the Cannery, Dave dove into the ultimate in creative design. He personally worked on the “Got to Make the Donuts” project which created swirling designs on 500 interior doors making the Cannery apartments even more attractive and unique. Using geothermal heating and cooling, the Cannery was also at the forefront of sustainability in Dayton. The project’s innovative use of Dayton’s abundant green energy sources earned Dave a spotlight as a speaker at the National Trust for Historic Preservation annual conference.

Dave also took his St. Anne’s social planning skills to the next level and created the massive community celebration in the Cannery Alley Way called “Can Openers”. Additionally, he helped to organize and host the sale of NCR’s irreplaceable collection of wooden molds at the Cannery.

By anchoring the east side of downtown with the Cannery project, Dave is truly the heart and soul of the renovation of new businesses, restaurants , and housing we have seen all along East Third Street and around Webster Station. As one of Dave’s nominators said, “If it wasn’t for Dave, we all would be eating a McDonald’s on Saturday afternoon.”

Each one of these transformative efforts required advocacy, innovative design, financial creativity and a lot of tenacity when things went sideways. But Dave’s major challenge was yet to come.

In 2014, Dave was hired by Citywide Development, in partnership with the City of Dayton, to jump start downtown housing development. He was assigned the task to harness an emerging Ohio demand for urban market-rate housing as well as attract quality, experienced and savvy adaptive reuse developers to Dayton to attack the redevelopment of many of our beautiful historic (and vacant) downtown buildings. Dave’s first order of analysis was to calculate what it would cost to demolish five major Main Street buildings. He penciled out a cost of about $25 million with the potential loss of tax credit equity in the range of $50 million to $75 million to get to five vacant lots. That caught the attention of everyone and began the conversion of people advocating for demolition to people advocating adaptive reuse. Dave then met the task by helping developers find hidden opportunities not only for adaptive reuse but brand-new products like townhomes. He educated everyone about the wide variety of financial tools including federal and state tax credits, new market tax credits, PACE and LIHTC. Whatever it took. But, of course, with a little nudging from Dave to do it right.

Also in 2014, the city had come to the heartbreaking decision that the Arcade might never happen and was now a public nuisance. The mayor formed a task force to prepare the community for the inevitable. Dave Williams and John Gower took the lead on the task force. Dave made the sagacious observation that sentiment had run its course. If the Arcade was to rise again, it would need to be based on sound financials and not wishful thinking. The task force hired both a professional demolition consultant and an adapted reuse consultant. Everything was on the table.

Dave argued if demolition was the soundest policy, it must include not only what we think of as the Arcade but also the Commercial Building, McCrory’s, and the 25 South Main building to create a decent development parcel. The estimate to remove the buildings ranged from $8 million to $12 million. The result of that approach would leave a very difficult vacant parcel to redevelop. The Task Force then balanced that information with the analysis from the adaptive reuse consultants – Sandvick Architects from Cleveland. What began to emerge was a practical approach that identified the redevelopment of the Arcade as a financial possibility.

In the spring of 2016, Dave went to work with the Miller-Valentine Group. MV had become the development partner for the proposed artist housing conversion. Dave worked as a critical Arcade team member with the Miller-Valentine team and Bill Struever of Cross Street Partners of Baltimore. Bill was the lead visionary that was shepherding the Arcade development vision. And in his spare-time, Dave couldn’t resist activating space in the Miller-Valentine Building into a creative space he dubbed the ”The Kitchen” to cook up creative approaches to adaptive reuse.

In October of 2017, Dave went to work for Cross Street Partners to continue to work on the Arcade project. He used every bit of his skillset to help the team advance the effort. During the most stressful and suspenseful process of finalizing the capital stack for the first phase of the Arcade, Dave broke his ankle in three places, underwent a three-hour surgery, and was restricted from any weight-bearing activity for 14 weeks. In the eleventh hour and despite these challenges, Dave was at the forefront of bringing all the financing sources over the finish line. In April of 2019, the South Arcade (first phase of the project south of the alley) had its financial closing.

Dave has now spent most of his waking hours of the last 4 years working with the Arcade team to get it to its opening. Dave has been the oil in the crankcase. Hourly and daily coordination for Cross Street, McCormack-Baron and the Model Group partners, committed and potential tenants, design, marketing, finance – anything that you could think of makes his continuing leadership incalculable. Out of Dave’s brilliant brain came the idea for The Tank – an underground pitch pit in the round in the old food court area, a new vertical circulation concept that would connect all of the buildings with a new skylight and the primary compass point being identified on the decorative medallions of the rotunda. This makes us wonder if Dave’s entire career was the preparation that would be needed to help the Arcade rise from the ashes like a Phoenix. What a gift for his hometown!

What we now love about the Arcade is not merely a restored Arcade but a completely re-imagined city within a city. Dave has brought all his skills to bear… advocacy, innovative design, financial creativity, persistent tenacity, creative event and space-making, passion and imagination to the Arcade Dream Team!

While Dave has spent years rebuilding and reshaping his city, he has also been working tirelessly behind the scenes to advance the Preservation Dayton cause by working with community advocates, influencers, opinion makers, local, state and federal lawmakers. In addition to his engaged activist role in the early days of Preservation Dayton, he has been involved with the National Trust for Historic Preservation and most recently with Heritage Ohio. Dave is a board member of Heritage Ohio. Most recently, when the federal tax code was overhauled several years ago, the federal historic tax credits and many of the provisions were placed at risk with the legislation. As a member of the Heritage Ohio board and coalition of activist members, he played a key role with the entire Heritage Ohio delegation as they travelled to Washington D.C. to meet with the Ohio congressional delegation. Ohio federal elected officials from both sides of the aisle played a pivotal role in saving the historic tax credits and Dayton is continuing to benefit from that to this very day.

Dave Williams truly deserves to be just one of three Life-time Achievement award winners recognized by Preservation Dayton for his unsurpassed “Excellence in Historic Preservation.”

 Lifetime achievement award - 2017

Mary Ellington
Wright Dunbar

Mary Ellington was recognized in 2017 with the lifetime achievement award for her tireless and outstanding efforts to preserve the history and legacy of Paul Laurence Dunbar and the Wright Brothers. She has guided the Wright-Dunbar neighborhood from a blighted and largely neglected area to the beautiful historic neighborhood we see today. She has received letters of appreciation from Congressman Mike Turner, and City Commissioner Jeffery Mims, Jr., as well as a flag that was flown at the Ohio State Capitol Building.

 Lifetime achievement award - 2006

Jerry Hauer
Hauer Music

 Lifetime achievement award - 2006

Betsy Wilson
130 Alberta St.

 Lifetime achievement award - 2005

Brian Hackett
Former Director of the Montgomery County Historical Society

 Lifetime achievement award - 2002

Mike Turner

Former Dayton Mayor Mike Turner is being given a "lifetime achievement award" by Preservation Dayton Inc., the city's coalition of historic neighborhood organizations and others. Turner, a corporate attorney and Republican candidate in the 3rd Congressional District, was a leader in the Rehabarama programs that featured renovations and marketing of rundown houses and construction of infill houses in several of the city's historic districts. PDI president David Bohardt called Turner, a resident of Huffman Historic District, "the primary architect of Rehabarama" and said much recent downtown redevelopment took place because the old neighborhoods near downtown had been turned around from blighted conditions. The city has nine historic zoning districts: Oregon, the grandmother established in 1972, and St. Anne's Hill, Huffman, Grafton Hill, Dayton View, South Park, Wright-Dunbar, McPherson Town and Webster Station.

 Lifetime achievement award

Alice Woodward (1915-2000)

Alice Woodward (1915-2000) was the dean of Dayton's historic preservationists. Not only did she save more than 40 buildings, including the Steamboat House, now on the National Register of Historic Places, but she advised and aided other preservationists as well. All of her work was done to the highest standards. Alice Woodward was a guide and inspiration to the historic preservation movement in Dayton, a movement which has resulted in some of the city’s most successfully revitalized and marketable neighborhoods. For her efforts to save historic buildings she was given an award by the governor and House of Representatives, with particular recognition given to her instrumental role in saving College Hill Hospital, the Dayton Mental Health Center and the Jacob O. Joyce home. In a very real sense, we owe much of the preservation of Dayton’s historic architecture to Alice Woodward and the preservation movement she initiated and nourished. She was inducted to the Dayton Walk of Fame in 1998.