The city of Kettering has launched a free outdoor gathering place at a local office park.
The city teamed up with market researchers and urban designers to create BaseCamp, which is the name of the temporary social pop-up at Miami Valley Research Park.
BaseCamp features seating, WiFi and a small stage for live events. Food and drinks from local vendors are available for purchase. Since opening Oct. 17, BaseCamp has hosted a comedy show, trivia night, music bingo, and more.
BaseCamp implements ideas from the Miami Valley Research Park Master Plan, which aims to improve the economic and social offerings available at Research Park.
"It's a good location, but it also has a vacancies and a lot of undeveloped land," said Kevin Wright, who worked on BaseCamp through his urban design company Yard and Co. "The plan started thinking about how we can reposition the park as a more mixed use, dynamic place that people could come to even if they didn't work here."
Miami Valley Research Park is a 620 acre office park split between Kettering and Beavercreek. Residents include Solvita, Reynolds and Reynolds, and CRT Technologies.
Yard and Co. worked with the Miami Valley Research Park Association to develop the master plan in late 2025. The new plan is designed to modernize the park amid a work-from-home landscape. Goals of the plan include extending Iron Horse Trail and promoting the park's green spaces and waterways.
"Miami Valley Research Park provides quality of life in the workplace through its intentional connections to nature," Kettering Assistant City Manager Bryan Chodkowski said in a statement. "BaseCamp is the active extension of that connection in a more personal and social way."
Wright said BaseCamp is essentially a pilot test for other permanent additions. Feedback and surveys from this iteration will inform longer-term projects.
"This winter, we're thinking pretty hard about what a two to three year installation would look like," Wright said.
A long term installation would test demand for retail, food, and beverage tenants. That demand testing would help inform permanent additions to Research Park, Wright said.
You can visit BaseCamp through Sunday at 3139 Research Blvd. Upcoming events include a Ghostbusters screening Friday night and pumpkin carving Saturday afternoon. More information is available on BaseCamp's official Facebook page.