Is Bright Road in Dublin About to Change? 20 Million-Dollar Homes on One Side, 175 Senior Apartments Proposed on the Other

Bright Road in Dublin is about a mile of two-lane road between Riverside Drive and Sawmill, with an elementary school on it, a lot of trees, and a city plan from 2013 that calls the area "very distinctive rural residential character." Right now it has two development fights on opposite sides of the road, next to the same school. One is 20 homes at $1.5 million to $2 million on a wooded reserve, recommended for approval last October with a commissioner calling it outstanding. The other is a 175-apartment senior living campus that drew a petition and, as of two weeks ago, still has no application filed. I sell in Dublin, and the question I keep getting is which one to worry about. So I pulled every Dublin closing this year to answer it with numbers instead of a yard sign.

What got recommended on the north side of Bright Road?

On October 23, 2025, Dublin's planning and zoning commission recommended approval of a plan from the architecture firm MKSK for 20 single-family homes on a 14-acre reserve north of Bright Road, near Grande Cliffs Estates and Hopewell Elementary. Corinthian Fine Homes is the designated builder. The price tag per house is $1.5 million to $2 million. The plan keeps 5.6 acres of greenspace and threads walking paths through the woods that neighbors can use, and it is not gated. Brian Kinzelman of MKSK told the commission that a tasteful street sign was about as bold as they wanted to get. No entry walls.

The commission liked it. Gary Alexander called it an outstanding project. Kim Way said it should not look like every other subdivision in Dublin. Rebecca Call, the chair, said the city does not get applications of that quality very often. The rezoning from Restricted Suburban Residential to a planned unit development had been recommended in February. That is the whole record: unanimous enthusiasm, a builder attached, a price band, and a reserve that stays mostly wooded.

What is proposed on the south side, and why is it stuck?

Sentry Land Company out of St. Louis wants to build a continuum-of-care campus on 17.6 acres southwest of Bright Road and Emerald Parkway, adjacent to Hopewell Elementary. Roughly 175 senior apartments plus 19 single-story villas, with independent living, assisted living and memory care. The commission discussed the concept on August 20, 2026 and took no binding action, because concept-plan feedback is not binding. The next step would be a rezoning and preliminary development plan. The city told NBC4 in early September that no application for that stage had been received, so there is no hearing date.

The neighbors organized. A resident across from the site started a petition after the August meeting that passed 100 signatures. The objections are traffic on the Bright Road entrance, which sits opposite Macbeth Drive and shares the road with the school drop-off, plus the height, the lighting, the privacy and the loss of the rural feel.

The petition is not the thing that matters most. City staff's August report says about 11.5 acres of the site carry a neighborhood office designation under Envision Dublin, the community plan. That designation generally calls for density under 9,500 square feet an acre, one- to two-story buildings with residential character, low lot coverage, wide planted buffers. Sentry's main building is 207,514 square feet, three stories at the center, which works out to roughly 18,000 square feet an acre on that part of the site. Assisted living is a named supporting use under that designation, so the use fits. The scale does not, at almost double the plan's number. That is a staff finding, not a neighbor's opinion, and it is why the applicant has not filed yet.

What does Dublin actually sell for in 2026?

Every closing in the Columbus REALTORS MLS with a Dublin mailing address, January 1 through September 3, 2026. Speed is MLS entry to contract.

Dublin, 2026 through Sept 3	Resale	New construction
Closings	688	46
Median sale price	$537,500	$718,725
Middle half of sales	$370,000 to $720,000	$599,900 to $779,604
Median price per square foot	$240	$263
Median days, listing to contract	14	71
Closed above original asking	35%	4%
Sold at $1 million or more	46	4
Sold at $1.5 million or more	6	1
Sold at $2 million or more	2	1
Highest sale	$2,500,000	$3,900,000

On the market now: 200 homes at a median asking price of $499,900. Twenty-two of them over $1 million, ten over $1.5 million, eight over $2 million.

Two things in that table decide the Bright Road question.

First, Dublin at $1.5 million and up is a very thin market. Six resales all year. One new build. Twenty homes at $1.5 to $2 million on one road would be more closings at that number than the entire city produced in 2026, and they would be the deepest set of comps at that price Dublin has ever had on a single street. If you own a large-lot house near the reserve, that is good for you at appraisal time, and it is nothing at all for a $500,000 house two streets away except three years of construction traffic on a two-lane road.

Second, 14 days to contract and 35 percent over ask at a $537,500 median is a market that does not need either project to hold value. Dublin is not waiting on Bright Road. Bright Road is waiting on Dublin.

Which project should an owner actually watch?

The senior campus, and not because of who would live there. Because of what it would look like and how it would drive.

Twenty houses on 14 acres with 5.6 acres of woods kept is lower density than most of the subdivisions around it. You will see roofs through trees and a street sign. A 207,000-square-foot building three stories tall at the center of a 17-acre site next to an elementary school, with its full-movement entrance on Bright Road, is a different object. The city's own plan says the parcel should carry about half that, in buildings a story shorter. Whatever gets built there will be argued down from the current concept, and the argument is about scale and traffic, which are the two things that reach a house across the road.

If the senior project comes back at something close to the plan's number, one or two stories, a smaller footprint, a buffer, it is a good neighbor. Assisted living generates little traffic outside shift changes, and the villas are exactly what the corridor already is. If it comes back at the current size, the Bright Road entrance opposite Macbeth is the thing to show up and talk about, because the school traffic is the argument the commission will hear.

What should you do if you own or are buying on Bright Road?

If you own near the reserve and are thinking about selling, the 20-home project is a reason to wait for the first one to close, not a reason to sell now. A $1.5 million comp on your road is worth more to you on a closing statement than on a rendering.

If you own across from the Sentry site, get on the city's notification list for case 26-041 and go to the hearing when there is one. There is not one yet. The petition did its job by getting the scale into the staff report.

If you are buying anywhere on Bright Road, ask three things before you write. Which side of the road and how far from each parcel. Whether the seller has heard anything from the city about a filing on the senior site. And what the Dublin number looks like without either project, which is $240 a foot and two weeks to contract, because that is what you are actually buying.

Send me the address and I will send back every 2026 closing within a half mile, the distance to both parcels, and what the 20-home comps would do to your number when they land. Start with a home value estimate if you are weighing a sale, or set up a home search if Dublin is where you want to be, and I will run it myself. If you want to talk it through, book a call.

Related reading: the Dublin submarket page, Dublin new construction: Jerome Village, Muirfield and Bridge Park, Dublin property tax rates in 2026, and what Dublin's data center rezoning meant for Ballantrae.

Adam Geuy, Realtor, Blacktree Realty. 937-239-2919.

Sources

• 14-acre reserve: commission recommendation October 23, 2025; MKSK; 20 homes; $1.5M to $2M; Corinthian Fine Homes; 5.6 acres conserved; not gated; Kinzelman, Alexander, Way and Call quotes; February rezoning recommendation: NBC4, October 31, 2025 and NBC4, "Proposal to build million-dollar homes on 14-acre Dublin reserve advances".
• Senior living concept, August 20 discussion, no application filed, petition, Envision Dublin density and height standards, 207,514-square-foot building, 2013 Bright Road Plan, access on Bright Road opposite Macbeth, resident quotes: NBC4, September 4, 2026. Case record: City of Dublin, PZC case 26-041, Dublin Senior Living Concept Plan, 4178 Bright Road, 17.6 acres, R-1.
• All sale prices, counts, price per square foot, days to contract, over-ask shares, price-tier counts and active listings: Columbus REALTORS MLS closed and active residential listings, Dublin mailing address, January 1 through September 3, 2026, computed by Adam Geuy from MLS exports. New construction reported separately and never blended into resale.