The Helix Innovation Center, Emerson’s HVACR research facility, and the Northwest Dayton neighborhood are geographically close to each other. They sit on opposite ends of the Montgomery County Fairgrounds. But in many ways, they exist far apart. The Helix occupies a state-of-the-art building on the campus of the University of Dayton. Dayton View is an economically struggling area that has lacked a full-service grocery for the past decade.
That’s about to change, and Emerson, along with Hussmann and Chemours, played a major role in that. The Gem City Market (GCM) is slated to open soon on Salem Avenue, Dayton’s main thoroughfare. The stores will offer area residents fresh food along with community gathering spaces that include a coffee shop operated by a Black female veteran and an afterschool program for neighborhood children. It will also feature the first refrigeration system of its kind in the United States.