If the Riverway's founding years were about building a brand, the October 2019–June 2021 chapter was about resilience. A new coordinator took the reins right as the world shut down — and the coalition responded not by pausing, but by shifting nearly everything online while quietly laying groundwork for the multimillion-dollar riverfront investments that would follow.
Dan Foley stepped into the Riverway Director role in November 2019, just months before COVID-19 upended in-person programming everywhere. The coalition's bi-monthly meetings moved to video conferencing starting in May 2020, a shift that, notably, stuck around even after restrictions eased.
Rather than go quiet during the pandemic's early months, the Riverway leaned into digital engagement. In March 2020, it launched a social media campaign called "14 Days of Fresh Air and Virtual Activities," designed to give people healthy, safe ways to enjoy the region while many businesses were closed. The e-newsletter subscriber base grew to 3,576, and the coalition kept producing content — seven professional videos with Manavision in 2020, followed by nine more with Pivot Media in 2021.
A new real-time bacteria-level map, built with the University of Dayton's Innovation Center, gave paddlers a way to check water safety before heading out — data that updates automatically every 15 minutes by pulling from MCD and USGS sources.
This period saw the Riverway secure a genuine first: a press conference with the Ohio Department of Transportation to announce location signs on every ODOT bridge from Sidney to Hamilton, helping paddlers in distress communicate their location to first responders. It made the Great Miami the first river in Ohio with this kind of safety partnership.
Two data projects gave the coalition sharper insight into its own impact. A second Tourism Economics study, released in mid-2020, showed 18% growth across visitation, spending, and jobs since the first report — tourist spending climbed to $913 million in 2019, supporting 9,717 jobs. Separately, the Riverway signed on with UberMedia to analyze location data from smartphone apps, aiming to understand where visitors were coming from and how long they stayed.
Even with events cancelled, strategic planning didn't stop. In mid-2020, the Riverway partnered with Aileron to develop a formal strategic plan, pulling in representatives from 14 regional agencies. The process produced a clearer mission — connecting communities along 99 miles of river to grow jobs, visitors, and investment — plus four strategic priorities for 2022–2027 that would shape the coalition's next chapter: building awareness, strengthening community connections, driving riverfront investment, and broadening the funding base.
Notably, this period is when the Miamisburg coal plant redevelopment (later valued around $200 million) first surfaces in the coalition's internal reports, along with the earliest conversations about a river surfing and whitewater surf feature planned for a low dam in West Carrollton — a project that would later anchor an entire new riverfront district and become one of the Riverway's signature attractions.
The 2021 Riverway Summit finally returned in person on April 30 in Hamilton, drawing over 125 attendees — a modest but meaningful signal that the region was reopening. The coalition also picked up the Bike Miami Valley Regional Advocacy Committee's 2021 Advocacy Organization of the Year award, and the Great Miami River Bike Trail was voted Ohio's best by Ohio Magazine readers.
Looking back, this stretch reads less like a stall and more like a pivot — one where a young coalition figured out how to keep momentum without the in-person gatherings it had relied on, and used the quiet moments to plan its most ambitious phase yet.
Read the full Great Miami Riverway Activities Report, October 2019–June 2021.