A local charity has bought the final piece of real estate it needs to launch construction of an $11 million, 80,000-square-foot human services center near downtown Dayton.

Goodwill Easter Seals Miami Valley will begin by razing the former South Main Street flag shop it purchased this week and six adjacent commercial properties.

The Dayton Daily News reports officials are soliciting architectural bids for the building and surroundings.

The charity plans to move 125 employees from its current headquarters into the center. Fifty more jobs are projected over the ensuing five years as it expands assistance for the disabled, elderly and unemployed.

The Downtown Dayton Priority Board says the project will inject new life into the area.

Attorneys for a federally backed pension insurer have declined to enter mediation with retirees of a bankrupt auto-parts supplier suing to have their full pensions restored.

The Dayton Daily News reports that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. rejected the non-binding mediation with Delphi salaried retirees. A spokesman for the insurer said Thursday said it can pay out only the amounts authorized by Congress.

Chuck Cunningham with the Delphi Salaried Retirees Association said it came after six weeks of discussions.

The retirees have been struggling for three years to get their full pensions from Delphi.

A new study finds that buying locally could generate millions of dollars for parts of Southern Ohio, As Emily McCord reports for WYSO, it could benefit an economy still recovering after shipping company DHL left Wilmington.              

Republicans have been very effective in tying the slow economy to President Obama. But in Ohio, the recovery is more noticeable than most states. At the Democratic National Convention, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown is urging delegates to spread that message. 

Like most Democrats at the Convention, Sherrod Brown is keen to remind people that the Great Recession began under the Bush Administration.  He told Ohio delegates that in George Bush’s last month in office the U.S. lost 800 thousand jobs.  By 2010, Ohio’s jobless rate was 10 ½ percent.