A former Hilliard City Schools site at 4300 Reynolds Drive is being eyed for a 270-unit apartment development, after the school board voted to solicit proposals to sell the property for at least $6.5 million and developers began presenting plans for the land.
The 22-acre site sits adjacent to Hilliard Crossing Elementary School, and the apartments under discussion would be market-rate, according to district and development presentations reported this week. The proposal is still at the presentation stage, with no development agreement approved.
The district has held the Reynolds Drive property as surplus land, and the board’s decision to test the market puts a price floor on any sale at $6.5 million. Proceeds from a sale would return to the district, while the land would move onto the tax rolls under private ownership.
Hilliard remains one of Franklin County’s faster-growing suburbs, and multifamily development along its established corridors has been a recurring theme as builders look for infill sites with existing roads, utilities, and schools already in place.
For neighbors, the open questions are the familiar ones: traffic on Reynolds Drive, how a 270-unit community would be phased, and what buffering would separate new buildings from the elementary school next door and nearby homes. Those details typically take shape through the city’s planning and zoning process.
The Reynolds Drive land has been discussed as a development candidate before, reflecting a broader pattern in Hilliard City Schools, where older or underused parcels near established neighborhoods draw interest whenever they come to market. A sale at or above the board’s asking floor would also end the district’s cost of holding and maintaining acreage it no longer uses for instruction.
City officials have consistently tied new residential growth in Hilliard to road and intersection capacity, and a project of 270 homes would be expected to come with a traffic study as part of its review. Residents near Reynolds Drive can expect public notice and hearings before any rezoning or site plan is approved.
No timeline for selecting a proposal or closing a sale has been announced. Any development plan would still need to work through Hilliard’s review process before construction could begin on the site.