Joint Meeting of Delaware City Council and Delaware City Schools - March 9, 2026
Joint Meeting of Delaware City Council and Delaware City Schools - March 9, 2026
This joint meeting of the Delaware City Council and the Delaware City Schools Board featured updates on residential and economic development within the city, as well as a presentation on the school district's strategic priorities, challenges, and financial outlook. Key topics included the city's housing pipeline, commercial and industrial projects, and the district's focus on community, staffing, and facility needs.
Discussion Items
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City of Delaware Development Update: A staff member presented an overview of the housing pipeline. As of the meeting, there were 1,273 approved but unbuilt single-family units across the city (including in all school districts), and 1,364 unbuilt multifamily/condo units. Since the last joint meeting, no new residential developments had been approved within the Delaware City School District; new projects were primarily in the Olentangy and Buckeye Valley districts. In 2025, 526 single-family dwellings received occupancy, 161 were under construction as of February 13, 2026, 302 multifamily/condo units received occupancy, and 774 were under construction. An additional 3,911 units had preliminary zoning approval but no development plans.
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Economic Development Update: Economic Development Director Nick Langford provided an update on commercial and industrial projects. Under construction: 200,000 square feet of industrial flex space at Sawmill and Innovation Court, and 50,000 square feet at 2044 Pittsburgh Drive (Pioneer Flex). In the pipeline: 45,000 square feet at Howeld Industrial Park and 10–15,000 square feet at Bell Avenue. On the horizon: Gateway Commerce Park (135–200 acres for biotech/advanced manufacturing, projected 500–1,000 jobs), and a new 60-acre industrial park adjacent to Pittsburgh Industrial Park. Commercial projects included the Kroger Marketplace (120,000 sq ft, opening Q3 2026), a 90–100 room senior living facility on Glenn Road, a mixed-use downtown building (16,000 sq ft), and a potential hotel on Spring Street. The Sunbury Road corridor (3637) may see a Chick-fil-A, daycare, Chipotle, and two to three big-box stores. Major expansions included PPG's $280 million investment and another unannounced $200 million project. Langford also noted ongoing work on a comprehensive incentives policy, affordable housing initiatives, and land-planning to accommodate school needs.
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Delaware City School District Update: A district representative (likely the superintendent) presented strategic priorities emerging from community conversations. The top two themes were "community/family feel" (the word "family" was repeated frequently) and "exceptional people" (dedicated teachers and principals). Challenges identified included social-emotional support for students, technology integration, and operational processes. Financially, the district noted that state revenue share has been declining over the past 10 years, and substitute levies have not been added, limiting revenue growth. The representative mentioned a need for a new high school facility (approximately 100 acres) and discussed student enrollment projections. A school board member suggested exploring the possibility of having a student representative at city council meetings to improve communication and understanding between the city and schools.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken during the meeting. The updates were informational, with follow-up discussions to continue between city staff, council, and school board members. The city and school district will work collaboratively on the incentives policy and land-use planning to address school facility needs.
Other Discussion
- A council member suggested that a student representative from the school district could attend city council meetings to provide a youth perspective, noting that it would help the community understand school issues. The idea was received positively, though no formal action was taken.
Meeting Transcript
Mr. Tackett is not here. Holy cow. So sorry. We'll just go around the bin. Miss Griffith? Mr. Haynes. Here. Mr. McClellan. Here. Mr. Bogan. Here. Vice Mayor Frazier? Here. And Mayor Rickle. Mr. Mrs. Yes. Maybe we have a motion. Second. Yes. So I would love to join us. What's the same as we said then? So first one said it's an update. Some of our homes that are sectionated in the state. Good evening. So I'm just gonna give you all a little bit of a summary of uh the housing pipeline and and what's been approved as far as single family and multifamily housing goes uh within the city of Delaware. So I do just want to point out that this is um for housing within the entire city, so this includes not only uh Delaware City schools but also Olin Tanji and um Buckeye Valley as well. Um so to start, this uh map on the first slide shows uh single family housing in the pipeline. So this is housing that has its zoning approved and has uh development plans approved as well, uh, but has not started construction. So for single family housing currently, as it sits we have a thousand two hundred and seventy-three unbuilt units that have been approved throughout the city. Um I do want to point out that since the last time we had uh a joint meeting, um we have not approved any new uh single family or multifamily uh residential developments within the uh city of the Delaware school um district. So in the past year there have not been any new within that district. Um they've primarily been in the Lantangi school district, and then also um we have one significant project in uh Buckeye Valley, which is the Northwood Development. As far as uh multifamily goes, the total unbuilt units across the city uh currently sits at 1,364. And uh as you can see on the map, uh most of these unbuilt units are within the Delaware City School District. Um a lot of these um, you know, they're they're larger projects that that take a long time. Um if you look at number five, that's Terra Alta, they're working on their last section, so they have 37 housing units left to uh unbuilt, and Terra Alta has been under construction for 20 years now. So a lot of these projects, you know, will literally like you see these these numbers in the four and five hundred as far as the number of units, but that's spanning sections that will take you know more than a decade to fully build out. And then the last slide that I have here is uh our future potential units. So they these are areas that have been rezoned. So the properties be we has been rezoned, usually from agricultural to uh either single family or multifamily residential, but we do not have any definite plans for actual um development on these sites. Some of them may sit for for another 10 years uh vacant, others potentially you know they could come in tomorrow and say, okay, we're ready to get moving. Um and at that point they would need to come back to planning commission and city council uh to get approval for any future housing development. Uh as far as some highlights from 2025, we approved uh 526 new single family dwellings last year. That's how many uh received occupancy. So the homes were completed and able to move into.
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