including Bimini Bill’s, A-List Lounge and Envy Lounge. SHOP’s story with the Bollinger Building began with a prayer meeting where our leaders agreed with God for a space inside the city where He would be put first. As we prayed, we asked Him to find us a facility. We had been searching for a few months and had not yet found anything fitting. That day, Missy felt compelled it was time to ask. So we all agreed together with the Lord. Later that same day, a friend contacted Jack and alerted him to the Bollinger Building going up for tax auction in June.  We visited the building, peering in the windows and examining the surrounding areas. We loved the potential! This building seemed like an option. 

As a staff we prayed and felt God was saying, “This is it. This is the space I want. Trust Me.” To purchase at County Auction, you had to buy sight unseen unless you commit trespassing crimes to get in ahead (this is common, but illegal). We, of course, would not do this, but trusted God could see the building in its state, knew our future and what was best, just as He had led us so well up to this point. So our staff presented the building to our Board of Directors as an option. 

The Dayton SHOP Board of Directors did some research, and unanimously agreed to move forward, encouraged by exponential rising values in the Terra Cotta District and the coming opening of the Arcade just two blocks away. In prayer, they felt confident. As a Board, we collectively felt God conclusively encourage us to bid until we won the building. At the time the ministry had approximately $265k on hand in cash. 

Dayton SHOP acquired the building at a Sheriff’s Sale in June 9, 2019 which is conducted by auction. The building was won at the minimum bid (about $127K) with no contest. The building was paid off in cash on September 11, 2019 and our first access was granted on October 2, 2019.  

Renovations began immediately as the building was in a state of disrepair. Our first major tasks were to deal with water leaks in the roof and the small mechanical roof, address the water sitting inside, hire environmental companies to remove mold and debris mainly in the basement and first floor which was contaminated, and deal with several major structural weaknesses including a huge portion of floor missing on the first level. 

We hired Chip Williamson, Chameleon Architecture, to come in with us and assess the condition of the building and help us develop renovation plans. Chip is incredibly talented and we enjoyed working with him a great deal. He was excited about the building and encouraged by the presence of an existing, and relatively new, sprinkler system which was installed throughout all three floors of the building. This system alone was valued over the price we paid at auction! With the building having lots of interior exposed brick and high ceilings, the industrial design approach would suit well. Jenn worked with Chip on her design plans, drawing on his expertise for many aspects of the design. With a few interior wall additions, the building would provide a large prayer room, two multi-purpose counsel rooms, three bathrooms, a storefront, a large collaborative office, two lobbies, and a large classroom. The basement was not utilized in this opening phase of construction. 

Phase I began and was mostly completed by February 2020. We held many workdays throughout the winter where our community, friends and family showed up in force for two hours of demo! What fun memories. Thank you to all of our volunteers!

Architectural plans were complete and ready to go to the city for permit approval by mid-March 2020. That is the same week COVID shut down most of the businesses in the nation, including Dayton’s planning office. Our prints would have to be submitted by mail. This caused a significant delay in our progress as plans formerly expected to be received in early April, were not received until Late June. However, thanks to Chip!, our first round was approved with just very small changes. We were ready to move on Phase II of our building plans.