On the ground floor of 252 Xenia Ave. is the Yellow Springs Toy Company, which is set to close soon after eight years of business. Above are two apartments. On the ground floor at 254 Xenia Ave. is the former hardware store space, and above are four more apartments. (Photo by Reilly Dixon)
YS Development Corp. poised to close on downtown buildings
- Published: December 15, 2025
Right around the turn of the new year, the Yellow Springs Development Corporation is expected to close on the purchase of two downtown buildings: 252 and 254 Xenia Ave.
Once a purchase agreement is finalized in the coming weeks, YSDC will buy the two adjoining properties for $630,000 — money loaned to the quasi-governmental nonprofit and certified community improvement corporation from the Yellow Springs Community Foundation.
The three-story building at 252 Xenia Ave. previously housed Yellow Springs Hardware on its ground floor until the business closed earlier this year; on the second floor are four apartment units; and the third story is uninhabited storage space. Next door, in the building at 254 Xenia Ave., is the Yellow Springs Toy Company, and above, two more apartments.
These properties went up for sale earlier this year following the 2024 death of previous owner and local property magnate Bob Baldwin.
As previously reported, YSDC members say they want to acquire the mixed-use buildings ahead of any out-of-town developer, whose intentions for the properties may have been incongruent with local values and development goals for Yellow Springs’ downtown business corridor.
“Local control is really what we want,” YSDC member-at-large Lisa Abel told the News last month, emphasizing that YSDC’s primary aim is to preserve the two historic buildings for years to come.
While a month has passed since YSDC’s public announcement of its intentions to buy the two buildings, only the path toward acquisition has emerged; what happens after remains unclear.
Abel told the News earlier this week in another interview that two possibilities are ahead of YSDC should the sale go through: stay involved as an owner, or consider reselling the properties to a buyer of their choosing.
“At this point, we don’t know,” Abel said. “We’re going to explore both options. It comes down to how we can finance the properties if we elect to keep them, versus playing the role of ‘middle man’ and selling it. There are no definite plans for either option yet.”
These were the possibilities Abel and her YSDC colleagues — other local leaders and elected officials — discussed at the group’s most recent public meeting, Tuesday, Dec. 2.
First: due diligence
From the meeting room in the Miami Township Fire-Rescue station, Abel told her fellow YSDC members that, in order to successfully close on the purchase of the properties, the group must first complete the “due diligence” phase — mainly, conducting site surveys and property evaluations.
Abel explained that this 60-day phase began last month on Nov. 10, when the properties went under contract.
As of press time, YSDC has completed a structural engineering assessment of the properties, and still underway are asbestos testing and potential abatement, as well as inspections on the buildings’ plumbing, electrical and fire safety systems. Abel added that the county health department might also inspect the properties soon.
Conducting many of the buildings’ physical assessments and helping YSDC envision future site plans is Dayton-based architecture firm Earl Reeder Associates, Inc.
According to the firm’s online portfolio, Earl Reeder Associates works on residential and commercial spaces, and specializes in historical renovations. That portfolio includes the restoration of the Dayton Masonic Center, the Moraine Country Club and other historic buildings around Dayton. Of local relevance, Earl Reeder was tapped in 2019 to rehab portions of the historic Antioch Hall.
That focus on historical redevelopment could prove useful, should YSDC acquire the downtown properties.
According to county records, the three-story brick building at 252 Xenia Ave. was built around 1853, and is one of the oldest buildings in Yellow Springs. The adjoining structure at 254 was built sometime in the following decades; a Yellow Springs insurance map from July 1895 depicts both buildings in their current locations.
Past News reporting on the corner building notes that it once housed a college bookstore, an art studio, the area’s first library and, at one point, a hotel — one that may have had some connection with the abolitionist and liberation movements in the 19th century.
Both buildings have fallen into disrepair since then: A property appraisal that the Baldwin family had contracted earlier this summer notes that both 252 and 254 Xenia Ave. “have not been maintained” over the years.
“The interior surfaces are very dated and worn,” the appraisal, conducted by the Dunham Company, reads. “The exterior needs paint, tuck-point repair [on cracks in walls and foundations], at a minimum. The HVAC systems are archaic.”
The appraisal also states that the third story of the corner building is unlivable in its current condition.
At a town hall meeting last month — which drew around 100 villagers to the Bryan Center to hear YSDC’s preliminary plans for the structures — some attendees mused about the potentially high or prohibited costs of making those needed repairs.
“The question is for the audience,” mused local resident Dave Chappelle at the town hall, “If they say we have to tear it down or spend more money, what’s more valuable to you?”
Others there for the public gathering suggested the buildings were too important to ever demolish.
YSDC secretary and Antioch College history professor Kevin McGruder spoke to the buildings’ possible historical significance; he said that YSDC may have future inroads for state or federal funds for historical preservation.
For now, though, the full extent of the buildings’ needed repairs and how exactly they’ll be addressed remain to be seen. While the due diligence may offer YSDC and the community some answers, Abel said, untold “unknowns” about the viability of the buildings remain ahead.
“We’re not a deep pocket developer,” Abel said. “We’re doing this because the buildings are important to the community — they’re worth saving.”
Around 100 villagers packed Rooms A&B in the John Bryan Community Center on Tuesday, Nov. 18, to hear YSDC’s plans for the buildings at 252 and 254 Xenia Ave. Holding the mic and leading the meeting is YSDC member Lisa Abel. (Photo by Reilly Dixon)
Next: a property manager
In addition to completing the 60-day due diligence phase, YSDC must also hire a property manager ahead of the anticipated sale closure later this month or in early January.
Abel told her fellow board members at last week’s meeting that the job of property manager — a position for which, Abel said, there are currently several candidates recommended to YSDC from the realtors involved in the sale — will be to oversee the terms and conditions of occupancy for the buildings’ existing tenants.
Presently, there are seven tenants: six residents split among the upstairs apartments, and the Yellow Springs Toy Company on the ground floor of 254 Xenia Ave.
By the end of the year, however, YS Toy Company is expected to close after eight years of business, according to a recent online announcement from owner Jamie Sharp.
In a social media post, Sharp cited the broader economy, changing consumer habits, tariffs, the anticipated sale of her building and dropping sales all as reasons for her decision to close up shop. Reached for further comment last week, Sharp declined, stating a need to focus on wrapping up operations during these holiday weeks.
Above Sharp’s store are two residential apartments — both approximately 500 square feet outfitted with their own kitchens and bathrooms. Above the former hardware store are four considerably smaller living units — each ranging from 195 to 295 square feet, with a shared bathroom and kitchen. The six apartments garner $375 to $660 each in rent per month, according to the Baldwins’ summer appraisal.
Potentially becoming a landlord of all these units would be new territory for the nonprofit, Abel told the News.
“Our mission is economic development, not housing,” Abel said. “But here we are. We have a steep learning curve ahead of us.”
The fate of the six tenants took up a sizable portion of YSDC’s round-table discussion last Tuesday, and some members expressed greater trepidation than others.
“How did this become our elephant in the room?” asked YSDC treasurer Marilan Moir, who represents Miami Township on the board.
“How is that we’re now responsible for the wellbeing of a situation that, really, I believe is that of [Bob Baldwin’s] heirs and children,” Moir said. “We’re not only purchasing this building and going to incredible lengths for funding — a big risk — and now, we’re being asked to care for these years-long relationships between Bob and his tenants.”
New YSDC member Christine Monroe-Beard — representing the Chamber of Commerce — recommended that the new property manager abide by the existing lease agreements.
“We also have to follow basic landlord-tenant rights,” Monroe-Beard said. “We acquired this building with humans in it, and now we’re landlords — we’re responsible to uphold tenant rights per the Ohio code.”
Aside from the day-to-day oversight of the tenants’ well-being, the future property manager may one day encounter a difficult crossroad — where will the tenants go if the buildings require significant renovations and reconstruction?
“If all this goes forward, there’s going to be construction, and these folks may have to move for some time,” YSDC member and school board representative Rebecca Potter said.
Moir stated that, as someone who herself had been forced to move out of rentals unexpectedly and suddenly, she’s sympathetic for the tenants of 252 and 254 Xenia Ave., but contended that their living situation may be beyond the scope of YSDC’s endeavors.
“So, do we pay for their housing to get them out for six to eight months? Are we taking on the responsibility to house these folks at that time? I don’t think we have to,” Moir said.
All those present for last Tuesday’s meeting agreed that, at this point, those possibilities and questions will have to remain unanswered.
“Just give us some time,” Abel told the News in her follow-up interview.
“The best case scenario [for the current tenants] is that some alternative housing gets identified that’s suitable for their means and accessibility,” she said. “But right now, I just don’t know. We’re going to continue meeting with the community and continue hosting town halls.”
The late Bob Baldwin. (News archive photo)
‘What would Bob do?’
Whatever happens in the months and years ahead, one tenant of 254 Xenia Ave. said he just hopes he and his neighbors get taken care of.
“My concern is not only for me, but for the other tenants up there,” Tom Sain, a six-year resident of 254 Xenia Ave., said earlier this week. “I don’t want to see people removed before they’re capable of figuring out something new. I love all my neighbors. I’m good friends with all of them.”
Sain said that he got his apartment above the toy store in mid-2019, during a moment of duress. A former Antiochian and a longtime village resident, Sain said his previous living situation was unexpectedly taken away from him.
In a chance encounter, he met Bob Baldwin — also an Antiochian — and the two immediately hit it off. Not long after, Sain moved into his new downtown digs, paying an affordable rent that Baldwin would occasionally discount when Sain performed odd jobs and tasks around the property.
“I miss the man all the time,” Sain said. “He prorated my rent. He prorated my deposit. He gave me work. Bob was just such an optimist, and I think he saw the same trait in me.”
Sain admitted that he’d prefer not to spend the rest of his days in that downtown apartment — noting that the “Frankenstein” electric and gas systems that connect the living quarters can sometimes be irksome — but for now, at this point in his life, it’s an ideal home for Sain.
“I certainly can’t speak for the other folks, but if I was told I had to leave, I’d need about six months to a year’s notice,” he said. “I think that’d be ample time to get my affairs in order and find a new place to live.”
With his characteristic optimism, Sain said he looks forward to working more closely with YSDC in the coming weeks and months, should the group purchase his and the other building from the Baldwin family.
“I hope they work with everyone who lives here with their best interests in mind,” Sain said. “I think that’s what Bob would want. I think that’d hold true to his legacy.”
He added: “And maybe I can help. I know construction.”
The next Yellow Springs Development Corporation regular, public meeting will be Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, at 4:30 p.m., in the Miami Township fire station’s meeting room. The group typically meets the first Tuesday of every month.
The Yellow Springs News encourages respectful discussion of this article.
You must login to post a comment.
Don't have a login? Register for a free YSNews.com account.
No comments yet for this article.