Dayton Independent Schools celebrated the groundbreaking on Monday of what has come to be known as Project One. The $14 million project is an effort to create a sports complex and learning space that will unite the district’s high school and elementary schools into one unified campus.
Superintendent Jay Brewer called the project “Dayton’s Field of Dreams.”
With all of Dayton’s 850-plus students from preschool through high school out of class for the event, it felt more like a pep rally than a groundbreaking. A sea of students in Greendevil green shirts greeted government and school officials, alumni, community leaders and construction representatives at the now-open field between Dayton High School and Gil Lynn Park.
On hand were representatives from the project’s architect, Robert Ehmet Hays and Associates and from Graybach LLC, the construction company. Both companies are based in Cincinnati.
Building ‘nice things’ for Dayton students
Brewer opened with a story from his second year as the head of the district in 2014. He said he was seated in the bleachers at Highlands High School in Fort Thomas next to Dayton varsity basketball player Reba Sanders. He said she looked out at the facility and asked him, “Why can’t we have nice things like this?”
“What a great question. And I really didn’t have a great answer. All I could tell her was I was working on it,” he said. “Well, let me tell you that one question on that one day lit a fire in me, and we got to work.”
He outlined the many improvements since Sanders first asked her question, including major interior renovations at both the elementary school and the high school.
“We’re on the road, Greendevils, to having nice things,” he told the crowd. “The elusive piece for us was finding a way to complete the vision of former superintendent Jack Moreland more than 40 years ago — to create one campus for Dayton Independent Schools, a vision to bring the football and soccer field onto this campus between the two buildings. This would require us to purchase all the property between the two schools. It would also require us to demolish all this property and then start building our ‘Field of Dreams.’ Many people thought this impossible and out of reach.”
Over the years, the district purchased houses and other buildings on the lot, he said. The last piece of the puzzle was the 2023 purchase and demolition of the industrial building known as the API building. API stands for Advertiser Printers Inc., the last long-term tenant who vacated the building in 2019.
Realizing a long-held vision
Moreland told the crowd it wasn’t the first time the district had turned what seemed like an impossible vision into a reality. He said when he was superintendent in 1979, the district set about on an ambitious task to raise the funds for a new high school. School leaders convinced the then state of Kentucky’s School Building Authority to provide additional funding and permission to build. This led to a $3.9 million project to construct the nearly 80,000-square-foot high school building.
“It’s been an exciting trip for me,” he said. “It’s finally something that’s coming to fruition in my lifetime. Not many people can say their dreams came together in their lifetime.”
The groundbreaking itself included two rounds. In the first, a student representative from each grade in the school system took the first shovel of dirt. They were followed by school officials, city and state leaders, community leaders and the construction project team with another round of shoveling.
Student athletes stationed strategically around the perimeter of the field unveiled a series of banners along the fence showing renderings of the project.
Project One is anticipated to be completed in 2025.
