Delaware is home to the region's only Specialty Aftermarket Equipment Business Park. Read More

BUILDINGS & SITES

The City of Delaware has over 70 buildings and sites to serve your business' needs. Click on the following link to search or browse all City of Delaware properties.

Search City of Delaware Properties

Serving an R&D center, boutique manufacturer or specialty equipment automotive company? Check out our new cluster park work by clicking the following image:

Specialty Aftermarket
Automotive Equipment Cluster Park

Are you serving a retailer? Our RETAIL page discusses how the City of Delaware has grown as a stand-alone retail market:

City of Delaware Retail Market


Zoning Map (PDF)

LABOR FORCE 

With a 20,000 worker local labor pool and a multi-county labor shed with nearly 2 million workers to draw from, we have the talent for your company whether you are looking for engineers, production level employees, warehouse and distribution workers, or IT or other white collar scientific or management and office employees.

Click to find out more about the City of Delaware's excellent
labor pool!

“The Delaware community continues to grow and expand in all areas; housing, schools and business.   This has helped JEGS attract a great workforce to service its customers and over 1 million packages shipped annually.  Delaware has become quite a home for JEGS.” –The Coughlin Family

INCENTIVES 

The City of Delaware offers competitive incentives that are negotiated based on the return on investment of your project. Our team will quickly give you an idea of potential incentives and then will make a recommendation to the Incentives Negotiation Team on what you should be offered. The recommendations of the Negotiation Team become a letter of intent that then formulate agreements which are presented to City Council for their Consideration. Most incentive packages can be completed and passed by Council in 60 days or less depending on scheduling of meeting dates and the amount of countering involved. 

The following is a list of links to our incentive programs. More detailed info can be read by click on that program. These are often times in addition to state incentive packages. We can arrange a meeting with our Columbus2020 project manager and your team to discuss potential state incentives. State incentives can include Job Creation Tax Credits, workforce training grants, road development grants, and loans. Contact us to begin discussions on how your project may qualify for incentives.

WHY DELAWARE?

The City of Delaware is one of the fastest growing communities in Ohio and is the county seat of one of the fastest growing counties in the country! Why is everyone moving here? Here are just a few of the reasons:

EDUCATION

Four of the state's top ranked school districts in the
county with #1 Olentangy Local Schools, Delaware City Schools and Delaware Area Career Center serving the City. If you don't want your children going to one of our high performing public schools, you also have your choice of multiple private schools including Delaware Christian, St. Mary's, and Village Academy. We also are convenient to the Japanese Language School and Ohio German Language School. Your employees have a plethora of educational options in Delaware!

HIGHER EDUCATION

With nearly 63 higher educational and training

institutions within a short drive of Delaware including Delaware's own Ohio Wesleyan University, residents can continue to improve themselves. This also allows for a great pool of job candidates and interns for your company. OSU (which has classes in Delaware Co.) graduates more engineering students than any school in the nation and is also one of the top ranked research institutions with centers such as the Center for Automotive Research. Columbus State Community College (with a convenient campus just on the border of the City) is the largest 2-year community college in the nation and has many technical programs designed around our employers' needs.


SHOPPING AND DINING

Delaware has small town charm with big
city amenities including 50+ restaurants, 6 groceries, multiple retail storefronts including national chains and one of the liveliest entertainment and dining downtown districts in Ohio. We also are only 12 miles from Polaris Fashion Place, Tanger Outlet Mall, Cabela's, IKEA; 15 minutes to Dublin; and, 30 minutes to Columbus.

RECREATION & PARKS

Your employees and their families will have plenty to keep them loving their lives in Delaware including:
- The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium (nation's #1 zoo)
-
 Over 21 miles of bike trails
- Delaware Community Center YMCA
- Multiple city parks including Mingo Park, Jack Florence Pool, Delaware Dog Park, upcoming Splash Pad, etc.
- Preservation Parks Network
-
 The Chiller Ice Rinks
-
 Alum Creek State ParkDelaware Lake State Park, Olentangy and Scioto Rivers
- 8 Golf Courses
- Blackwing Shooting Center
-
 Delaware District Library
-
 Delaware Municipal Airport
- Skyzone Trampoline Park
-
 Lazer Kraze
-
 Multiple Bowling Alleys
- Olentangy Indian Caverns
-
 Mad River Mountain Skiing and Tubing
-
 The Ohio Machine professional lacrosse team

THE ARTS

With a thriving Winter St. Arts District, we'll continue to
bring culture to you and your families with facilities such as the Strand Theatre, The Arts Castle, City Arts Center, and Central Ohio Symphony.

HOUSING

With 150 or more houses being built per year, we have a residential option for every budget. Houses range from $100,000 to $500,000+. We also have condos and apartments for all tastes including high end 2nd and 3rd floor renovated downtown apartments.

INFRASTRUCTURE 

The City of Delaware provides excellent infrastructure for your business including transportation for trucks and employees, rail, airport, excess water and sewer, telecom and fiber. We continue to seek opportunities for improving our infrastructure to better serve our business community and residents.

  • Location, Access & Roads - The City of Delaware provides quick access to Central Ohio, all of Ohio and 65% of the nation's population via I71, US23, US42, US36/37, SR315 and US33. Our local road infrastructure improved even more with the addition of the Sawmill Parkway extension -- a 12-mile direct access to Powell, Dublin and Columbus including I270.

  • Rail - The City of Delaware is served by a major north/south CSXTransportation Map rail line that also extends east/west into our industrial area serving many of our existing companies. Click image for full-sized map.

  • Water  - The City's new $30 million dual membrane water treatment plant went online inWater Map early 2015 allowing for treatment of both surface (Olentangy River) and well field water. The new plant increased capacity from 6 million gallons to 7.2 million gallons per day. Residents and businesses are currently using 4 million gallons per day leaving 3.2 million gallons of excess capacity. Click image for full-sized water map.

    We utilize a capacity fee based calculation rather than a tap fee. This fee utilizes Equivalent Domestic Units (EDUs) to calculate a company's capacity fee. To estimate your project's capacity fees, download our Capacity Fee Worksheet (Excel).

    It is important to note that the City of Delaware DOES NOT charge a separate fire tap fee as do most communities.

    Sewer Map
  • Sewer - The City also recently upgraded its wastewater/sewer treatment capacity to 10 million gallons per day. We use a tertiary treatment and have an avg. daily flow of 4 MGD and a maximum daily flow of 5.7 MDG.

    We utilize a capacity fee based calculation rather than a tap fee. This fee utilizes Equivalent Domestic Units (EDUs) to calculate a company's capacity fee. To estimate your project's capacity fees, download our Capacity Fee Worksheet (Excel).

  • Electric - Electric is plentiful and reliable with three providersDelaware Electric Map working in the area -- American Electric Power (6 MW capacity without a dedicated substation), Consolidated Rural Electric Cooperative (20 MW capacity) and Ohio Edison (4 MW capacity without a substation). Two recently built substations flank our major industrial area off of US42.

  • Fiber - Our entire community is covered by Consolidated RuralEnlite Fiber Optic Network Electric's Enlite Fiber Optic Network. Enlite is a Layer 2, transport only, fiber optic network providing carrier transport and connectivity between your business and your choice of service providers. Enlite continues to grow with expansion plans into regional data centers, as well as other carrier meet-points. Learn more by clicking the image.

  • Natural Gas - Columbia Gas of Ohio allows for a 300+ CFH capacity to our businesses.



  • Telephone - Frontier Communications provides land-line basedFrontier Communications Homepage telephone and cable based broadband Internet.

  • Airports - The Delaware Municipal Airport has a 5,800 ft. runway, JetStream corporate jet hangar, Airspace Place airport hangar condos,shuttle and rental car service, meeting space and catering service, mechanics and a flight doctor. We also are only 30 minutes from Port Columbus International Airport and 45 minutes from the Rickenbacker multi-modal airport.

BUSINESS RETENTION & EXPANSION 

Once you locate your business in the City of Delaware, you won't want to leave and we are here to make sure that stays true! Our team of Economic Development and Business Concierge Professionals is here to work with you to find opportunities, discover solutions to issues and connect your business with resources of all sorts.

We also stay in touch with you. Each year a team of trained volunteers joins our staff in visiting as many businesses as possible. We are also always a call, email or text away.

Find out more about our Business Retention & Expansion assistance by visiting the BRE page or contact through via our contact info below.

“We have seen tremendous growth and diversification that has transformed the company. We have achieved this due largely to the support of our employees and customers, and also the greater Delaware community.” – Judd Scott, President and COO of V&P Hydraulics

DEVELOPMENT PROCESS 

Our Business Concierges will walk you through the entire development process and act as your teammate and liaison with Planning, Engineering, Building, Fire, Police and City Council.

For already annexed and zoned sites, the full pre-development process takes 3 to 4 months from start (for a combined preliminary and final development plan option). A separate preliminary and final development plan requires additional Planning Commission and Council Hearings for each adding around 2 months to the process.

If a site needs to be annexed and zone, the full process will normally take 6 months at minimum due to required annexation waiting periods.

The Shortest Process

  1. Combined Pre-Development/Final Development Plan and Application Submitted - Virtually all engineering and site planning must be complete at application.
  2. Concurrently:
    - Plan Review - 2 to 4 weeks
    - Engineering Review - 2 to 4 weeks
    - Building & Zoning Permit Review - 2 to 4 weeks
  3. Planning Commission cases to be heard concurrently - Planning Commission meets the 1st Wednesday of each month --> City Council cases to be heard concurrently - City Council meets the 2nd and 4th Monday of each month - This process generally takes 1 to 1.5 months depending on public hearing process.
  4. Permits issued.
With Annexation and Zoning
  1. Annexation petition submitted to City --> City Council passes resolution indicating City can serve property --> Annexation request heard and voted on by County Commissioners --> Application returns to City Council with 60 day waiting period --> Council passes after 60 days (must be before 120 days) -- Council decision subject to 30 day referendum period - Entire annexation process takes 90 to 120 days.
  2. Concurrently, application for rezoning/conditional use is made --> request is heard by Planning Commission --> Planning Commission makes recommendation to Council --> Council takes action - Rezoning/conditional use permits take 1 to 2 months. Surveying and platting also need to be completed during this time.
  3. Steps 1 to 4 in Shortest Process above happen concurrently to the previous to steps. Entire process takes a minimum of 6 months.

HISTORIC DOWNTOWN DELAWARE

Historic Downtown Delaware has achieved a 97% first-floor occupancy rate through collaborative efforts. Our, now, incredibly vibrant downtown has leveraged an estimated $70 million in investment with over $200,000 in downtown facade grants, community reinvestment area abatements, state and federal historic tax credits, etc. 

This district is an important recruitment tool for not only businesses but for young talented labor for your business.

Read more about Downtown Delaware HERE.


OUR BUSINESSES

Nearly 2,000 businesses call the City of Delaware home due to the low cost of doing business here, access to labor and access to local, regional and national markets. Find out more about a few of these businesses here.

DESIGNATED OUTDOOR REFRESHMENT AREA | DORA: Delaware City Council voted on October 23, 2017 to establish a Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area (DORA) in the downtown. A DORA is just that, a designated public area where alcoholic beverages (limited to beer and wine) can legally be consumed. In Delaware’s case, this will allow for the consumption of beer and wine (no spirituous liquor during special events only. Special events are defined as events that require an event permit from the City of Delaware. It will be up to the event organizer to determine if the event will be a DORA event.


City of Delaware   ·   COhatch, 18 East William Street   ·   Delaware, Ohio 43015   ·  740.203.1016   ·   opportunity@delawareohio.net


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