Next he started buying up property and options on commercial buildings along North Main Street in Dayton’s Santa Clara district. An area that had seen a revival back in the early 90’s when the City of Dayton invested in it as part of their “Town Centers” project. However in the last 20 years, Santa Clara has lost its mojo.
Boarded up store fronts are the norm, not the exception. He’s slowly working to bring life back to the neighborhood that he remembers visiting to eat at the Upper Krust, and dig through the record bins at Omega Records.
So far, he has a laundromat ready to go, and a tenant who just opened “Jokes and Tokes” where you can BYOB while you light up and listen to comedy shows. He’s working with a soul food restaurant and a new retail store to open in the beginning of the new year.
Before the election, he thought he’d give people driving by something to talk about, setting up a “Trump Store” with a bunch of Temu trash and trinkets with Trump’s name on it. The response was almost instantaneous, that he’d put it in the wrong neighborhood. But it proved people are looking and waiting for the green boards with orange hearts he’s put up over the buildings he owns now.
The city recently received federal approval of the area as Dayton’s newest historic district, and Matt is in on the ground floor. This should make some funds and tax breaks available to preserve and re-open what was once a prime business district in Dayton.
Matt’s also been involved with starting a 501c3 charity to help provide for the 19 kids who lost a parent from his former unit in the May 2018 crash of a C130 in Savanna Georgia. We’ll have more about that this May.
Matt resides in Oakwood, where he and his wife are raising their kids while he continues to scour the real estate in Santa Clara so he can win at Monopoly.
