The Dayton City Council approved a contract with Prus Construction Company at its meeting on Tuesday night to construct Phases 2 and 3 of the Riverwalk as part of the regional Riverfront Commons project.
“This day has been a long-time coming for the City of Dayton,” said Mayor Ben Baker. “The City has been working on this project for nearly 10 years, and we had to overcome some major obstacles to get to this point where completion of this portion of the project will finally be a reality next year.”
The City will spend $2,288,997 to finish Phases 2 and 3 of this project. Eighty percent of this project cost is being paid from federal SNK transportation funds awarded to the City. The City must provide a 20 percent match for these funds, which was included in its 2025-26 Fiscal Year budget. The 1.5-mile Riverwalk runs along the river and parallel to Manhattan Boulevard from O’Fallon Avenue on the west, the City’s border with Bellevue, to Mary Ingles Highway at Clark Street on the east.
Riverfront Commons is Northern Kentucky’s Riverfront District
The Riverwalk is the planned 20-mile trail within the riverfront district connecting eight cities along the south bank of the Ohio River. Riverfront Commons is the signature project of Southbank Partners, a non-profit regional economic development and placement management organization.
“This project isn’t just about a Riverwalk, it’s bringing Riverfront Commons to life as Northern Kentucky’s riverfront district — an unbridled destination for every season of life,” said Southbank Partners President & CEO, Will Weber.
“Riverfront Commons has played and will continue to play a pivotal role in attracting talent, businesses, and investment into our region by enhancing the quality of our shared public places by connecting historic downtowns to vibrant riverfronts.”
While the new Riverwalk along the Ohio River will be smooth when it is completed, the path to get to this point has been anything but smooth for the City of Dayton. The City completed the Phase I of the Riverwalk in 2020, also with Prus Construction as the contractor, and it planned to construct two other phases sequentially shortly thereafter.
After the City completed Phase 1, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (“KYTC”) approved the design plans for Phase 2 in 2022. Thereafter, the City advertised for bids to construct this phase of the project. But because of the COV-19 pandemic, the cost of the construction bids for the project was nearly $1 million higher than the City expected, and it did not have the money budgeted to cover this cost overrun.
To address this issue, the City also submitted a new grant to request to the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments (“OKI”) for additional federal funding to cover the increased costs and also requested its engineer to redesign the second phase of the project to address issues that may have caused the unexpected cost increase.
In October 2023, OKI authorized an additional $760,000 in federal funding to construct Phase 2. In the meantime, the City obtained design and construction funding from OKI for the final phase of this project, and KYTC allowed the City to combine the construction of these two phases at the same time to achieve additional cost savings.
“We’re proud of Dayton’s continued commitment to this project and its perseverance in seeing that Phases 2 and 3 will be completed, and we’re excited to partner with the City to complete the Riverwalk and bring the entire Riverfront Commons district to life in the City,” Weber said.
KYTC still must review and approve the bid and the contract with Prus Construction. Once that approval is received, Prus plans to start construction on the project this fall and finish it next spring. Southbank Partners along with the City of Dayton will host a public groundbreaking to celebrate this tremendous milestone, with more details to come at a later date.
The City also is seeking federal funding to upgrade its 25-year-old levee trail on top of the river levee, which will expand the existing width of the trail, add amenities to it, and connect it to Manhattan Boulevard and the Riverwalk. Together, the two trails will create a three-mile loop next to the river in Dayton. The City is expected to learn whether it receives federal funding for this project in October of this year.
City of Dayton