Columbus is moving quickly to plant a larger police presence at Easton Town Center, signing off on a construction deal that starts at eight figures and is designed to get shovels in the ground fast.
On Monday, the Columbus City Council approved an emergency ordinance that clears Elford, Inc. to serve as construction manager at risk for a new police substation near Easton under an initial $10 million contract. City officials say the emergency tag is aimed at letting work kick off in June to keep the long-planned project on schedule, according to the city's Legistar file.
The ordinance authorizes up to $10 million from the Safety G.O. Bonds Fund to cover pre-construction services, mobilization, and early construction work, with the understanding that the contract will be amended later to lock in a Guaranteed Maximum Price, per the same Legistar record. Planned spaces inside the new building include patrol operations, a Community Response Team, detective offices, a sallyport, bicycle patrol storage, locker and fitness rooms, and a community meeting room that is also designed as an ICC-500 storm shelter. The construction award was first reported by Columbus Business First.
The city's project overview puts the substation on the southeast corner of Sunbury Road and Easton Way, with construction slated to start in June 2026 and wrap up by September 2027, according to the City of Columbus project fact sheet. That document lists design costs at roughly $1.62 million and pegs construction at about $14 million.
The job was procured using a Construction Manager-at-Risk model and had to be rebid earlier this year, public purchasing records show, with the new solicitation posted on sites including GovTribe. Elford, an Ohio-based general contractor, points to a string of recent municipal work in the region, including police and fire facilities highlighted on its website, per Elford Construction.
The Easton substation is one of several public-safety projects folded into Columbus's broader capital plans. Mayor Andrew Ginther's capital budget has previously set aside $14 million for the Easton facility, as noted by WOSU Public Media. The site sits in the heart of a busy retail and entertainment district that has drawn periodic scrutiny over security after high-profile incidents, including a late-March episode in which a bloodied man reportedly staggered into Crate & Barrel claiming he had been stabbed at a bus stop, covered in bloodied man staggers into Easton Crate & Barrel.
What comes next
The emergency ordinance spells out that construction must begin no later than June 2026 and reiterates that the initial $10 million is limited to pre-construction, mobilization, and early work while the full Guaranteed Maximum Price is set through later contract amendments, according to the city's Legistar record.
The same project fact sheet lists John Hanson as the city's project manager and includes contact details for neighborhood coordination as work moves ahead, per the City of Columbus.
