While it’s helping to shape the future of retail, Stratacache these days is also becoming an increasingly substantial player in downtown Dayton real estate.
The Dayton Daily News broke the news Friday: Stratacache’s real estate acquisition arm, Arkham Ventures, bought Kettering Tower, downtown’s tallest building, for $13 million.
Stratacache’s real estate acquisition arm, Arkham Ventures, bought Kettering Tower, center, downtown’s tallest building, for $13 million. That announcement came less than two months after the company also bought the Courthouse Plaza tower at 10 N. Ludlow St. for nearly $1.7 million. TY GREENLEES / STAFF (Ty Greenlees)
That announcement came less than two months after the company also bought the Courthouse Plaza tower at 10 N. Ludlow St. for nearly $1.7 million.
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It may be based in Dayton, but Stratacache is more and more global, with 2 million software activations globally across multiple platforms, serving 28 countries, the company said in 2017.
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Stratacache’s real estate acquisition arm, Arkham Ventures, bought Kettering Tower, center, downtown’s tallest building, for $13 million. That announcement came less than two months after the company also bought the Courthouse Plaza tower at 10 N. Ludlow St. for nearly $1.7 million. TY GREENLEES / STAFF (Ty Greenlees)
Here are three things to know about Stratacache’s Kettering Tower purchase:
1. Location has always been important to Stratacache
Stratacache is a global provider of digital signage, monitors and customer-immersive technologies, but it has always had an impact on Dayton-area real estate.
The company moved to 2 Riverplace/2 Emmet St., a 60,000-square-foot-facility, in 2009. In fact, Stratacache Inc. owns that building. The company hasn’t decided what will become of it after it moves its headquarters to Kettering Tower.
The business also owns the 380,000-square-foot former Syncreon warehouse at 1 Modern Way in Trotwood, where today about 90 employees assemble sophisticated monitors and signage, which go out to customers across the world.
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Dayton has always been home to Stratacache. The talent is here, as are relatively low operating costs, Chris Riegel, the company’s founder and chief executive, told this news outlet last summer.
“We have 100 employees in California today, plus or minus,” Riegel said. “It is ungodly expensive. The regulation, the government interference.”
2. Kettering Tower is seen as a special purchase
On Friday, Riegel called Kettering Tower a “signature building in the city.”
The tower that will become Stratacache’s headquarters over the next 18 to 24 months was was built in 1969 to 1971.
It is 405 feet tall, downtown’s tallest structure.
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The 30-story tower was originally the Winters Bank Tower. Today, it’s a key anchor for business and has its own ZIP Code: 45423.
Builders poured more than 3,400 cubic yards of concrete to form the foundation and bolted together 4,000 tons of steel.
The exterior is bronzed anodized aluminum with bronze solar glass panels. The complex is 500,000 square feet, about 12 acres.
3. Stratacache is on the cutting edge of retail
Scala, part of the Stratacache family of marketing technology companies, is making a big splash in retail technology. Scala is a player in digital signs, augmented and virtual reality, mobile sensors, computer vision technology and artificial intelligence.
Riegel has set his eye on growing his companies into a $1 billion business. Key to that goal is growing in China and the Asia-Pacific region, a region where a speedily growing middle class is increasingly found shopping and dining at fast-food establishments, exactly the kinds of places where Scala/Stratacache technology is at home.
In mid-December, Stratacache announced the acquisition of an all-in-one intelligent tablet and computing device manufacturing company based in Ningbo, China.
Although based in Dayton, Riegel has identified China and beyond as the home more than 2 billion consumers.
“We have demonstrated significant focus on growth in the important Asia-Pacific market, investing more than $100 million in the region in the past 24 months, including the acquisition of Scala,” Riegel said in December 2018.