Drive east on SR-161 past New Albany right now and you’ll see it before you see anything else: noise walls going up, graders reshaping the shoulder, and a steady line of pickup trucks with toolboxes and lunch coolers turning off toward Smith’s Mill Road. This isn’t a future-tense story anymore. It’s happening this summer, in our backyard.
For three years, the headlines about Intel’s Ohio One campus have mostly been about delay. The first fab won’t be producing chips until 2030 or 2031, and a second won’t follow until 2032. If you only read the national tech press, you’d assume Central Ohio is on pause. I’ve spent three decades watching how big news cycles distort what’s actually happening on the ground here, and this is one of those moments. The construction is not paused. It’s accelerating.
What’s Actually Happening at Ohio One Right Now
A few things changed this spring that matter more for our market than the fab completion date ever did:
- Intel unlocked $1.5 billion in federal CHIPS Act funding in May 2026 after hitting project benchmarks, which keeps the multi-year buildout funded and moving.
- Major road work around the site began between May and June 2026 — part of a roughly $90 million ODOT investment in Delaware, Franklin, and Licking County infrastructure to handle the traffic this project is already generating.
- The build is still expected to bring roughly 7,000 construction jobs before a single chip rolls off the line, with active hiring underway for trades, electricians, concrete crews, and suppliers right now.
- Strong Q1 2026 results gave Intel’s leadership renewed confidence in the project’s long-term value, even with the slower fab timeline.
In plain terms: thousands of construction and supplier workers are already commuting into Licking, Franklin, and Delaware Counties every day, years before “Intel jobs” in the traditional sense even exist. That’s a housing story, not a tech story — and it’s one our blog hasn’t covered yet.
Why This Matters If You Live in New Albany, Johnstown, Galena, or Sunbury
Every major project like this creates two waves of housing demand, and we’re squarely in the first one. Wave one is the construction and supplier workforce — tradespeople who need rentals, starter homes, and short-term housing within a reasonable drive of the site. Wave two, years out, is the permanent Intel workforce and the suppliers who relocate around them.
Johnstown and Galena sit closest to the action, and we’re already seeing it in showing requests for homes in the $250k–$400k range — exactly the inventory that appeals to skilled tradespeople working a multi-year job. Sunbury and New Albany proper are absorbing some of that same demand, plus the families of project managers and engineers who want a short commute and good schools. Westerville isn’t immune either — it’s close enough on SR-161/I-270 to be a realistic commute, and it offers something the closer-in towns can’t yet match at scale: established neighborhoods, mature trees, and Uptown walkability.
Should Buyers Wait for the Fab to Actually Open?
This is the question I get the most, and the answer is almost always no. If you’re waiting for Intel to flip the switch on production in 2030 before central Ohio’s housing market “gets real,” you’ve already missed the window. Construction-driven demand is a now problem for inventory and pricing, not a someday problem. The buyers who position themselves in Johnstown, Galena, or the Sunbury corridor today are doing it ahead of the workforce wave that follows permanent hiring — not after it.
What Sellers in the Intel Corridor Should Know
If your home sits within a reasonable commute of Ohio One, your buyer pool right now includes more out-of-area, relocation-driven buyers than it did two years ago — construction supervisors, traveling tradespeople, and supplier-company transfers who need to move fast and don’t have the patience (or the local nostalgia) to wait out a slow listing. That changes how you should price, stage, and time a listing. A home that might have sat for three weeks in 2023 can move in days right now if it’s positioned correctly for a relocation buyer who needs to be local by a hard start date.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Intel still building in New Albany, Ohio? Yes. While Intel pushed its first fab’s production timeline to 2030–2031, active construction at the Ohio One campus continues, and the company unlocked $1.5 billion in CHIPS Act funding in May 2026 tied to meeting project milestones.
Will Intel’s delayed timeline hurt Central Ohio home values? Unlikely in the near term. The delay affects when permanent manufacturing jobs arrive, not the thousands of construction and supplier jobs already active on-site today, which are already influencing demand in nearby towns.
Which towns are closest to the Intel Ohio One site? Johnstown and Galena are closest, with New Albany, Sunbury, and parts of the Westerville corridor within a practical commuting distance.
Is now a good time to buy near the Intel site, or should I wait? Buying ahead of the permanent workforce wave — while the market is being driven primarily by construction and supplier demand — is generally the stronger position than waiting for the fab to open.
The Bottom Line
The “Intel delay” headlines tell you when the chips will roll off the line. They don’t tell you what’s happening on the ground in Johnstown, Galena, Sunbury, New Albany, and Westerville right now — and that’s the part that actually affects your next move, whether you’re buying, selling, or just trying to understand where this market is headed.
If you want a read on how this is playing out in your specific neighborhood, reach out to Crosier Group. We track this corridor block by block, not headline by headline.
Crosier Group | Red 1 Realty | Westerville, Ohio | 614-578-4412