Delaware city leaders are leaning hard into growth, telling the local business crowd this week that three new industrial buildings, nearly 250,000 square feet of space in total, are already under construction. To keep pace, the city says it is ramping up water, sewer and site-readiness projects in hopes of landing larger employers. Mayor Carolyn Kay Riggle and City Manager Paul J. Brake walked through the plans for the Chamber audience.
Per the City of Delaware Facebook post, the 2026 City Update put a spotlight on the new industrial construction and the city's planned investments in utilities and site readiness. The Delaware Area Chamber listed the presentation on its events calendar for last Thursday's Annual State of the City lunch, where Riggle and Brake addressed business leaders. The Facebook post said the city credits its current momentum to "strong partnerships like the chamber and leadership of its business community."
City Doubles Down On Site-Readiness And Utilities
Delaware County's five-year economic development strategy puts site-readiness and matching infrastructure projects to growth corridors at the top of the priority list, and city officials told the chamber they are following those cues locally. Delaware County Economic Development notes that prepared pads and coordinated utilities help communities compete more effectively for manufacturing and logistics projects.
Local Projects Show The Groundwork
Some of that groundwork is already on display in city records. The Sawmill Pointe Business Park includes a roughly 202,165-square-foot production facility that was approved for Inno-Pak, and additional speculative buildings have been part of the park's build-out. City of Delaware described the Sawmill project as an economic-development driver that opens pad-ready land for future users.
Regional demand for industrial and data space helps explain the pace. Reporting shows Cologix has begun work on a multi-phase data-center complex in the Lewis Center area, with a first phase of about 135,000 square feet planned, underscoring why power, water and broadband capacity are central to local planning. The Columbus Dispatch noted that those projects are engineered to support AI workloads and carry significant infrastructure demands.
City officials told the chamber the investments are meant to shore up conditions for existing employers and attract new ones, and a Facebook post from the City of Delaware credited "strong partnerships like the chamber and leadership of its business community" with helping projects advance. The update cast the work as a fiscally minded strategy to keep Delaware's finances stable while preparing land for higher-impact jobs.
Next up, all eyes will be on the timing of utility upgrades, permit filings and any council votes that could unlock more pad-ready sites. The city shares news releases and updates on its social channels, and the Delaware Area Chamber keeps an events calendar of public briefings. For details, see City of Delaware news releases and the Delaware Area Chamber calendar.
