Ohio University and Dublin are putting the finishing touches on plans that envision the city's last big expanse of undeveloped land evolving into a bustling district of people studying, researching, inventing, working and living.

What Dublin calls its West Innovation District currently is 1,100 acres that is mostly farmland, with the four buildings of Ohio University's medical campus at its center. If plans pan out over the next 30 to 50 years, that acreage could be packed with research facilities, offices, parks, light manufacturing and homes — but not the classic Dublin four-bedroom, three-car-garage variety.

For folks who relish planning at that scale, this might be the last chance to do so in Dublin.

"The blank slate that we have to play with there is really interesting," said Colleen Gilger, Dublin's director of economic development. "Nowhere else in Dublin do we have this large a piece of undeveloped land for us to vision. This is it. This is as far as Dublin will go."

The land stretches west from Avery Road and Route 33, with Post Road on the north and Shier-Rings on the south, stopping at what essentially is Dublin's final frontier: the limits of its water and sewer service under agreements with Columbus. The university owns about 60 acres just southwest of Post and Route 33. Under an agreement with Dublin, it will be given 25 more acres.

College and town became partners after OU in 2011 received its largest-ever gift, $105 million, with a mandate to build an extension of its osteopathic medical school in central Ohio. Dublin, meanwhile, had spent years seeking a university partner to anchor the research district it envisioned. "In the early 2000s, we believed that partner was Ohio State," Gilger said.

When talks with Ohio State fell through and word of Ohio University's grant got out, Dublin joined the fray and won out over other central Ohio cities vying to host the new medical school.

The campus plan calls for a "main street" running south from Post Road and curving to the west, where it eventually would meet a southern extension of the existing Bobcat Way. The main street is meant to be not a speedy thoroughfare but a destination, where people can walk, drive or bike to shops, cafes, galleries and the like at ground level. There might be classrooms or apartments above.

Early on, planners expected a different approach, said Shawna Bolin, OU director of planning and space management. "We thought that a lot of people would prefer a ring-road design and want cars on the perimeter," she said, "but when people really understood what we were trying to do, to make it welcoming," a main street with on-street parking and garages emerged as the favorite.

The plan calls for three phases: The first is to realign Eiterman Road and construct seven buildings with 618,000 square feet of space and two parking garages totaling 2,550 spaces along the site's northern tier. A second phase could add six more buildings with 515,000 square feet along the main street, plus two more garages. The third phase calls for 922,000 additional square feet in an unspecified number of buildings in the site's southwestern corner, plus 3,600 more garage parking spaces.

In all, OU's Dublin campus could fill out with 2.25 million square feet of building space and room for 7,700 cars, all on about 86 acres. Sidewalks and corridors of green space will connect everything.

The city and university have agreed to work together with developers on 25 acres just east of the campus, with frontage along Route 33, where Dublin plans to focus on research and tech development.

"I think universities are inherently a big player in economic development," Gilger said. "They're intense job creators; they spin out new companies. There will be companies that want to be near the university because they want access to professors or students."

The university's "framework plan" for the Dublin medical campus received the city's blessing in December and goes to university trustees for final approval later this month.

mcedward@dispatch.com

@MaryMoganEdward