Preston Park, the landscaped elevated walkway hovering above East Capital Street in downtown Columbus, has quietly served office workers and residents of Preston Centre and The Pembroke apartments for more than a year. But the general public still cannot walk through it, nearly a year past the date developers said it would open.
The greenspace was expected to open to the public by October 2025, according to reporting by Columbus Underground. Instead, a spokesperson for developer Edwards Companies now says the walkway is anticipated to open this fall, without offering an explanation for the delay, per the same report. Edwards Companies is building and paying for the park, which connects Preston Centre and The Pembroke, the outlet notes.
The holdup centers on a stairway and elevator inside the Capital Plaza garage that were meant to provide primary public access to the elevated path. Key-card access points installed by LAZ Parking at the garage's stairways and elevators make pedestrian access to Preston Park through the garage impossible, according to Columbus Underground's reporting. At the time the Downtown Commission approved the Preston Park project in May 2022, the garage was open 24 hours a day; the commission made resolution of the access-agreement issue a condition of that approval and also requested an additional access point at the eastern end.
An Architect Cites Limited Alley Space
The project's architect said there was not enough alley space for a new staircase, per the same account, complicating efforts to satisfy the commission's eastern-access request. A separate stairway and elevator east of South Fourth Street is described as complete and open to the sidewalk below, but the eastern walkway gate itself requires a key card and will be open only during public hours once activated.
Preston Park's third street steps and elevator, located across from the Statehouse, mark the walkway's extension to South Third Street. The park was created by removing the roof from an enclosed 1970s walkway, widening parts of the path, and planting flowers, small trees, and other greenery, according to Columbus Underground. Once open, the park is slated to run daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Architectural historian Robert Loversidge has suggested Edwards Companies provide evidence of an access agreement with the garage owner, the outlet reports, a request that speaks directly to the unresolved condition the Downtown Commission attached to the project's approval four years ago. A spokesperson for the Columbus Planning Division had not provided the official meeting-minutes stipulation by the time Columbus Underground published its report, leaving the exact terms of that condition publicly unconfirmed.
Part of a Much Bigger Downtown Bet
Preston Park is one piece of Edwards Companies' broader $600 million Capitol Square Renaissance project, a multi-phase, 10-acre master plan intended to eventually deliver more than 1,000 residential units, nine restaurants, and public green spaces near the Ohio Statehouse, according to Columbus Navigator. The elevated plaza and walkway itself carries an estimated project value of $12 million, per tracking figures published by Downtown Columbus Inc. Preston Park and Preston Centre are also designated connection points along the city's planned $100 million Capital Line, a two-mile pedestrian and bicycle loop that broke ground on Gay Street in March.
Density around the block keeps climbing regardless of the walkway's status. In December 2025, the Columbus Downtown Commission approved plans for an adjacent 12-story, 218-unit residential tower on South Fourth Street, on a surface lot next to Preston Centre, Columbus Navigator reported. Space beneath the elevated park is already slated for use as an outdoor patio for a planned restaurant, adding another layer of activity underneath a walkway the public still cannot reach.
A Site With Deep Local Roots
Preston Centre itself, at 155 East Broad Street, is an adaptive reuse of the former 24-story PNC Tower office building, converted into more than 100 apartments alongside office space and retail, a transformation the Columbus Young Professionals Club has highlighted as a model of downtown reuse. Butcher & Rose, a steakhouse Edwards Companies opened with Cameron Mitchell Restaurants in 2023, sits on Preston Centre's ground floor and connects to the sunken garden space beneath the walkway.
The Pembroke, which opened last spring and links directly to Preston Park, preserved and reinstalled the 100-year-old limestone façade of former structures on the site that once housed WCOL, described as the first country western radio station in the United States, according to design firm KEPHART. The walkway also now displays Abre Biplan, a sculpture by French artist Jean Dubuffet installed on the path earlier this summer — a nod to a longer local art history, since New York's Pace Gallery operated a satellite branch on East Broad Street from 1965 to 1982 that introduced Dubuffet's work to Columbus audiences decades before the sculpture arrived downtown.
Preston Park has been pitched as a public open-air park inspired by New York City's High Line, complete with an existing staircase just east of South Fourth Street. The gap between that vision and the locked eastern gate lands amid a broader downtown housing boom: the residential population downtown reached roughly 13,513 people by early 2026, up from 11,200 in 2021, a surge tied to projects including Edwards Companies' recently completed Madison North tower, which offers rents up to $4,623 a month a few blocks away. For now, the elevator and stairway meant to welcome that growing population onto Preston Park remain off-limits to anyone without a key card.
