Local organization gets $6M in funding to upgrade infrastructure

DAYTON, Ohio — The Dayton Phoenix Group is getting help to rebuild their plant on Kuntz Road in Dayton after it was significantly damaged during the 2019 Memorial Day tornadoes.

The Dayton-Montgomery County Port Authority this week approved to give the plant more than $6 million in funding to help the plant become more energy efficient.

The building was almost completely destroyed in the tornadoes that struct the Miami Valley on Memorial Day, but it has since been rebuilt.

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The Dayton-Phoenix Group had to move operations out of their plant on Kuntz Road after the tornadoes hit.

Executive Director of the Dayton-Montgomery County Port Authorities, Joseph Geraghty, said, “They certainly had options to move considering the significant damage, but they chose to stay in our community and rebuild.”

Dayton-Phoenix has been operating in the community for the last 50 years engineering products for the locomotive industry. The Port Authority is now stepping up to help them rebuild.

“We were able to use our tools called Property Access Clean Energy (PACE) financing to provide capital to them. To help them finish out their significant renovation,” Geraghty said.

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The Port Authority trustees voted unanimously Monday to provide $6.85 million in PACE funding to Dayton-Phoenix.

That money will be used for the following Geraghty said, “heating and ventilation equipment and LED lighting and some other what we would call energy products.”

The Dayton-Montgomery County Port Authority is also providing funding to the construction of the economy lien expansion project in west Dayton – a project that is expected to create dozens of new jobs in the area.

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