Dublin City Schools has officially backed out of a deal to acquire the vacant Cardinal Health office building, pivoting instead to expand Scioto High School, according to statements made by Superintendent John Marschhausen during a board meeting. Marschhausen told NBC4i, "The Cardinal Health west building is a valuable asset to the Dublin community as a whole," and emphasized ongoing discussions about the site's future uses but clarified the purchase opportunity had passed.
The proposed purchase, initially put on hold in August after Dublin’s Planning and Zoning Commission opposed necessary zoning changes, has been officially nixed. The district instead has begun focusing on a 60,000-square-foot expansion at Dublin Scioto High School, which is slated to begin construction on May 22 and is meant to accommodate 500 to 600 additional students. The superintendent elaborated on the plans and the need for redistricting given the district's growth, "Our enrollment projections indicate, by moderate projection, that we’ll have 2,000 new high school students by 2034. We’re still going to need room for about 1,500 additional students by 2034. But, this is the short-term solution," Marschhausen said in a statement obtained by NBC4i.
Once complete, the expansion of Scioto High School is poised to allow for an enrollment balance of around 2,000 students at each of Dublin's three high schools. The project is part of a broader strategy to address the anticipated swell of 2,000 high school students across the next decade, and it aligns with a district-wide redistricting effort set to impact elementary and middle school students for the 2025-2026 school year, as illustrated in an article from ABC6.
