The Economic Development office located at City Hall is responsible for attracting businesses into Delaware.

Sean Hughes, economic development director and business concierge for the city, identifies himself as the ‘Chief Marketing Officer’ for the city.

Hughes, who came to Delaware in 2013, said, “My main charge is to attract businesses into the community … I work with companies of all sizes … help finding them locations, site preparation, infrastructure work, and construction. I also do business retention expansion. And that’s where we go out and maintain good relationships with existing businesses in our community,” he said.

A new standalone website, delawaremeansbusiness.com, has renewed marketing efforts, according to Delaware’s 2015 Economic Development Annual Report.

Website traffic increased by 1,337 percent in 2015, according to the report.

First floor occupancy rate currently in downtown Delaware is at 94 percent. In 2014, the occupancy was at 87 percent. 

Hughes’ office also helps business owners navigate around local, federal and state laws. He said he also works for business creation in the county by recruiting and cultivating entrepreneurs.

“We want to make sure they know what they are getting into.”

Delaware County is the fastest growing county in Ohio and numbers prove it. The annual average household income increased by $530 between 2013 and 2014, according to the U.S. Census 2010-2014 5-year American Community Survey.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics, the unemployment rate in the city in 2013 was at 5.6 percent and went down to 3.2 percent in 2015.

A 79 percent increase was seen in payrolls from jobs created and retained in the 2015 fiscal year.

Delaware has nearly 16,000 jobs, next to only Columbus in the Delaware county cities, according to the City of Delaware’s Economic Development office.

Hughes said, “We’re looking at the next level of businesses … an entertainment retail district concept ... What is going to generate more foot traffic? We’re attracting seasoned entrepreneurs,” he said.

Relationships within the business owners’ community, he said, are a mix of both skepticism and fear for competition.

“Main Street [Delaware] is a network for downtown. We’ve fostered through relationships,” Hughes said. Customers from Powell, Dublin, Marysville, among other places are now shopping and dining here on Sandusky Street, according to Hughes.

A culture of giant retail districts and shopping at malls is hurting downtowns all around the country. Hughes said, “In the 1950s, downtowns were the mall. This is the place where people came to get their groceries, furniture, shoes, everything. That can’t happen anymore, because there are retail districts like Meijer’s, Walmart everywhere.”

What’s unique about small town downtowns is they can be entertainment retailors.

"For example, a place like Button Up that has very creative and artistic houseware you cannot find elsewhere, that combined with the microbreweries and restaurants we have drawn in recently is a powerful success formula for our downtown."

Robert Gitter, a professor of Economics at Ohio Wesleyan since 1976, has also noticed a shift in the downtown area. 

“The biggest change I have observed is that when I first moved here, downtown Delaware was a self-containing shopping area. This was before the internet … you could do all your shopping in downtown Delaware,” he said.

“There were hardware stores, men’s clothing, book stores, groceries. Today, if you have to buy a gallon of milk downtown … there is nowhere to shop."

Evaluating the success of downtown Gitter said, “I think it’s doing OK. I wouldn’t say thriving but I’ve seen downtowns where every third store or so are vacant … having the university here also really helps … If I had to give it a letter grade, it’d be a B … but downtown is certainly not thriving.”