The small city of Dublin traces its roots to 1810, and its name to a surveyor who came to America from that fabled Irish capital. It was a quiet town until the 1970s, when an interstate highway connected it to the region and a new golf club gave people a reason to go there. Located near the state capital of Columbus, it evolved into an affluent bedroom community – and might have remained so if not for an investment that was new for its time.
Most American cities and towns fund themselves on property and sales taxes, but Dublin has a local income tax. It provides a dependable stream of revenue that allows the city to invest for the long term. One of those investments has become a connecting thread that unifies and powers its other economic and social assets. They call it DubLink.
A Network is Born
Following telecommunications deregulation in 1996, Dublin began installing a network of underground conduit to encourage deployment of broadband by private carriers. A public-private partnership with the Fishel Company soon followed, and by 2003, Dublin had built and installed optical fiber in the DubLink network. It was justified in part by the ability to offer high-speed, high-quality connections among city facilities, sharply reducing telecom costs. But it also opened the door to providing affordable high-capacity connectivity to corporations that had chosen Dublin for their home or regional offices, including Cardinal Health, Quantum Health and the Wendy’s fast-food chain.
As Dublin installed more and more fiber in its conduits, it began doing capacity-sharing deals other public and public-private entities. DubLink interconnected with Columbus FiberNet, which reaches into cities across the Columbus Capital Region. It partnered with the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC), carrying some of the traffic on OSC's 1,600-mile fiber backbone. In return, the OSC and Dublin joined forces to create OARnet, a fiber infrastructure connecting governments, schools and businesses to Ohio colleges, universities, research institutes and Federal labs. Other fiber transport partnerships included Central Ohio Broadband, linking with other cities that have developed fiber networks, and agreements with two carrier hotels in Columbus to exchange traffic in return for giving DubLink customers connection to global carriers.
Invisible Infrastructure
Connectivity – and Dublin’s skill at negotiating capacity-sharing deals – paid dividends. The Supercomputer Center and OARnet gave Dublin schools, businesses and institutions access to next-gen networking technologies and massive data-center capacity. Dublin uses DubLink as a backbone for e-government services and a Wi-Fi network, for which it builds and manages hardware while a private company provides services. The city uses the network for mobile computing by its first responders and field staff, fleet monitoring of snowplows and other city vehicles, and video monitoring of traffic. It also supports city-sponsored cultural events, like the Dublin Irish Festival weekends and the Jack Nicklaus' PGA Memorial Tournament, taking place in that golf club founded in the Seventies.
From its founding, DubLink maintained a bright line between public and private use because municipalities operating their own networks have frequently been the target of lawsuits by private-sector carriers. The city delivered no services except for its own government traffic, and leased conduit space or its own fiber to carriers serving the business market. When, in 2022, it requested proposals for construction of a fiber-to-the-home network for residents, it stuck to the same strategy. The plan called for the city to invest several million dollars in the project, but for the network to be built and operated by a private carrier.
Dublin retained an experienced consultant to review the submissions, guide contract negotiations and monitor the planning and construction by the winning bidder. That winner was altafiber, formerly one of the Bell operating companies, which gained a 15-year operating agreement. Construction began in April 2024 and was substantially completed in December 2025, one year ahead of schedule. More than 15,000 Dublin homes gained access to bandwidth of up to 10 gigabits – and just as important to Dublin’s future, the real estate development community gained a high-value amenity for their projects.
Entrepreneurial Opportunity
It takes more than data pipes, however, to build a competitive economy. Applying the same skill it brought to leveraging DubLink, the city has dedicated itself to building an entrepreneurial economy that can deliver new sources of growth and both attract and retain talent.
Its first initiatives go back as far as 2009, when it opened the Dublin Entrepreneurial Center (DEC) and invested US$625,000 to attract a regional nonprofit accelerator called TechColumbus (now known as Rev1 Ventures) to energize it. DEC is now home to an average of 50 companies and support organizations, including the Center for Innovative Food Technology, the Ohio Fuel Cell Coalition and Dublin’s own Center for Global Business Development. Within the first 10 years, the city’s investment in TechColumbus yielded nearly $15 million in investment, debt financing and new revenue.
This ongoing commitment to support and strengthen entrepreneurship helps explain why there are more than 4,000 companies in Dublin, with an average of just seven employees each, despite the city’s success in hosting facilities for multinational corporations. It also accounts for the fact that this city of 50,000 has a daytime population exceeding 70,000.
Nonetheless, Dublin still benefits from proximity to Columbus, the state capital, with its many colleges and universities. Eighty percent of residents have a bachelor’s or graduate degree. But Dublin’s leaders understand the vital importance of creating a workforce that meets the specific needs of its major employers and fast-growing entrepreneurial companies.
The city began by hosting a series of education and business roundtables, which led to an annual Business-Education Summit on Workforce Development. Among other results, the effort led to a partnership between the state-sponsored BioOhio program and Dublin’s Tolles Technical & Career Center for the creation of a biotechnology program, and another between the city and the Columbus State Center for Workforce Development to bring targeted training programs to the city.
The Bridge Street District
Dublin’s Historic District is rich in character and continues to evolve alongside the community’s forward-looking vision. Anticipating demographic shifts, the city planned the Bridge Street District as a vibrant extension of downtown. The District brings together residential, commercial, dining and entertainment experiences in a connected, pedestrian-friendly setting – positioning Dublin to meet the needs of a dynamic, modern workforce.
The Bridge Street District brings that vision to life as a vibrant, walkable, mixed-use neighborhood featuring a blend of residential, office, dining and retail spaces, complemented by parkland on both sides of the Scioto River. Largely completed in 2020, the district has proven highly successful, spurring continued expansion and investment. Today, it serves not only as a dynamic destination, but also as a visible hub for Dublin’s next generation of innovators.
Building on this momentum, the newly announced Riverview Village is planned as a dedicated innovation hub that brings together entrepreneurs, startups and business leaders in a collaborative, flexible environment. Designed to foster connection and creativity, the space will serve as a welcoming destination for the broader community - blending workspace, gathering areas and programming to support both economic growth and community engagement.
Healthcare Advances
Healthcare has been a particular beneficiary of Dublin’s high level of connectivity and the anchoring presence of Cardinal Health, a Fortune 17 provider of healthcare management services. OhioHealth, a nonprofit network of hospitals and healthcare facilities, uses DubLink and partner networks to connect is corporate headquarters and five major hospitals and billing centers across Central Ohio. Its innovative Dublin Methodist Hospital employs technology to create a completely digital, wireless and near-paperless environment that better serves patients while increasing productivity. It was named one of the “Most Wired” hospitals in America by Hospitals and Health Networks magazine.
Innovation is not restricted to in-patient care. Outpatient Care Dublin, an extension of The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, receives nearly 1,000 visits per weekday from residents of Dublin and surrounding communities. It offers 22 different specialties, from allergy and immunology to cardiology, diabetes and endocrinology, at a fraction of the cost of a visit to OSU’s center in Columbus.
In April 2025, Mount Carmel Dublin opened a 35-acre, state-of-the-art medical campus with 60 inpatient beds; emergency care; and cardiology, neurology, orthopedics, primary care and surgical services for the community. This makes Dublin home to all four major health systems in central Ohio, turning the City into a healthcare magnet in the Columbus Capital Region
Regional Development
Dublin is also a leading member of the public-private partnership that has created the 33 Smart Mobility Corridor. Between Columbus and East Liberty, U.S Route 33 is home to one of the largest manufacturing clusters currently active in the state, with more than 250 companies, 66 of which are automotive-related firms. To retain and attract businesses working on smart mobility, the City of Dublin, the City of Marysville, the Union County Port Authority, and Union County established the NW 33 Innovation Corridor Council of Governments (COG). Unifying the assets of the region under one banner allowed the COG to vie for funding opportunities that would traditionally be out of reach.
The council installed a fiber network along the 35 miles of interstate between Columbus and East Liberty. The network runs from the Metro Data Center in Dublin over the DubLink network into neighboring Marysville and the Honda America plant, and to a transportation research center. It hosts short-range communications equipment in nearly 100 locations that communicates with 1,200 public and private test vehicles to evaluate connected vehicle applications, autonomous technologies, and traffic management applications. It also serves most companies and a new R&D office park within the corridor.
This concentration of companies and technology infrastructure enabled COG to secure a US$6 million grant from the US Department of Transportation. This Federal seal of approval soon sparked more than $200 million in state, local and private investment. It also attracted the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Center, in partnership with Ohio State University, to launch a research program developing low-altitude air traffic management technology using passive radar, which reads radio reflections from existing transmitters rather than generating its own. The use of passive radar has the potential to drastically reduce the cost of creating systems to monitor small aircraft, helicopters and drones operating at low altitude.
Dublin has long held a reputation as a well-planned community, grounded in a deliberate, long-term approach to growth. Through both strong and challenging economic cycles, the city has consistently assembled the key elements of a thriving innovation economy – one that now extends across the region. This strategy continues to position Dublin as a forward-thinking, resilient community built for sustained success.
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Dublin was featured in the Intelligent Community Forum book Seizing Our Destiny.
Population: 49,000
Labor Force: 75,000
Website: dublinohiousa.gov
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