Driving New Venture Creation and Social Innovation
The Hub Powered by PNC Bank is a one-of-a-kind joint venture between The Entrepreneurs' Center and the University of Dayton designed to drive new venture creation and social innovation. Housed at the Dayton Arcade — a historic landmark built in 1906 in the heart of downtown Dayton — The Hub is one of the largest university-anchored innovation spaces in the country. It provides 95,000-square-feet of co-working and private office spaces, meeting rooms, conference areas, pop-up retail opportunities, and classrooms.
As the centralized location for the region’s entrepreneurs and innovators, The Hub provides UD students, faculty, and staff the opportunity to engage and support local small businesses, startups, and social ventures at the most experiential level.
Home to Innovative Initiatives
The Hub houses dynamic learning classrooms and collaboration spaces for entrepreneurship and select College of Arts and Sciences courses; the L. WIlliam Crotty Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, which empowers students with top-ranked, hands-on experiences that spark innovation, build entrepreneurial skills, and launch real-world ventures; and the The Herr Venture for Change Program — launching in Fall 2026 — which will prepare students to launch mission-driven ventures that create meaningful impact locally and globally through social entrepreneurship.
Benefits and Impact
The Hub functions as a critical focal point of activity that contractually, physically and programmatically merges the region’s foremost entrepreneur-oriented organizations. The space is designed to allow the free-flow of ideas and to facilitate "serendipitous collisions" among innovative thinkers while offering practical, flexible, and cost-effective space solutions for entrepreneurs.
- User Insight: The Hub is the culmination of years of experience with students, faculty, staff, entrepreneurs, inventors, innovators, corporations, and community leaders to create a transdisciplinary model of incredible experiential learning and commercialization opportunities for enterprising students and citizens.
- Cultural Impact: The Hub is designed to transcend the physical confines of its space, to intentionally foster cultural impact by extending the resources, talent, and capital available within The Hub to the broader Dayton community in partnership with the City of Dayton and project developers. Starting with the Greater West Dayton Incubator, this model is designed to create pathways into the startup ecosystem for minority and women entrepreneurs in underserved areas.
- Business Impact: The Hub accelerates opportunities for innovators and entrepreneurs to launch their ideas, grow their businesses and drive prosperity. The Arcade redevelopment has been described by national urban renewal experts as "the most transformative project in America," it will rekindle Dayton’s heritage of innovation, and create hundreds of new jobs.
Location and Transportation
The Hub is located in the historic downtown Arcade, at 31. S. Main Street.
Students, faculty and staff can easily access The Hub by riding the Flyer bus, operated by the Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority. The bus is free and runs every 10 minutes during selected hours, Monday-Saturday.