During its meeting on Wednesday, the Delaware Planning Commission listened to an informal concept review for a mixed-use development to be constructed on the city’s southwest side.
Maronda Homes LLC is proposing to construct Donovan Farms, which would contain commercial use as well as both single and multi-family uses, on an approximately 110-acre site located between South Section Line Road and South Houk Road near Boulder Park.
More than 107 acres of the site is currently located within Delaware Township, and according to city documents for the proposal, a petition has been submitted for annexation into the city. An ordinance for the annexation will be considered by Delaware City Council during its next scheduled meeting on Monday, Jan. 9.
The concept includes 238 dwelling units of detached, single-family homes with three different lot widths of 42, 52, and 65 feet and a typical lot depth of 125 feet. Approximately 20 acres on the eastern boundary of the site, adjacent to South Houk Road, would be dedicated to multi-family housing.
As for the commercial component of the site, Councilman Cory Hoffman enquired about what, if any, uses have been identified by the developers as possible uses. John Konovodoff, director of land in Ohio for Maronda, said it’s difficult to forecast at the moment. However, he added there would likely be three or four outlots with “small uses.”
“It’s a little bit of a difficult site for commercial, frankly,” Konovodoff told the commission. “I’ve done some large master plans in the past, and most of the commercial is driven by traffic and rooftops. And when you have half the area and the radius shut off to rooftops due to the quarry, it makes it tough for the numbers to pencil.
“I think when people think commercial, they always think, ‘I want to have a Starbucks here, I want to have a small, little bistro or corner shop.’ But it’s tough to make those pencils because our lots, at 238 or so units, plus the multi-family, isn’t enough to keep a McDonald’s open, let alone some mom-and-pop shop. So it’s difficult to say. I think it’d probably have to sit there for a little bit until both Boulder Farms and our site were fully developed, and maybe some additional industrial development to the south.”
The commercial outlots encompass 19.5 acres of the site and would line the western boundary of the site directly off South Section Line Road.
The internal road network would extend to access points off South Section Line Road and Houk Road. In addition to those two access points, a connection to Boulder Drive would also be included in any future plans. According to documents for the plan, city staff would recommend a roundabout for the Boulder Drive intersection.
Because the meeting was simply a concept review, no action was taken by the commission. Should the proposal progress, the developers will need to come back before the commission with a preliminary development plan.
