Astor Park

Collaborative Public-Private Infrastructure Project Supports On-Time Completion of New Major League Soccer Downtown Stadium

Part of the unprecedented ‘Save the Crew’ story of community and regional advancement, Astor Park is the mixed-use district supporting the new home of Major League Soccer’s Columbus Crew SC in downtown Columbus, Ohio’s Arena District. The comprehensive stadium project—implemented by a multi-firm design and development collaborative—spans a vast 33-acre site west of Nationwide Arena and Huntington Park and houses the MLS stadium on 13 acres, with 15 additional acres targeted for mixed-use private development and 5 acres devoted to public infrastructure. Astor Park surrounds the stadium and will feature as much as 270,000 square feet of commercial and office space along with new luxury and affordable housing residential living units.

The City of Columbus engaged OHM Advisors as the prime consultant on the project to create the infrastructure for Astor Park, which included the design and construction of four new roadways (over 2,000 lf) north of Nationwide Boulevard between the Olentangy River and Hocking Street. The design consisted of new pavement, concrete curbs, brick sidewalks, street trees, water main, storm sewer, underground electric distribution, street lighting, sanitary sewer, multi-user private utility duct bank and irrigation system. Our team performed in-house design services and coordinated the design services of multiple subconsultants, delivering results with design aesthetics mirroring the look and feel of the Nationwide Arena and Huntington Park areas, and incorporating seamless, high-quality pedestrian and vehicular connectivity throughout the entire area.

Engaged in early 2019 prior to the onset of the global pandemic, our team was charged with coordinating these complex design elements with multiple public and private collaborators on an expedited construction schedule to allow for a strict July 2021 opening date for the new MLS stadium. A significant challenge for both the design team and the City at the outset, OHM Advisors played a critical multidisciplinary role in managing the project and meeting its important milestones even before the onset of the pandemic, and then continuing throughout 2020’s challenging circumstances. We delivered this integral segment of a complicated public-private partnership project on schedule and budget on the City’s behalf, while also helping to achieve greater project success.

Project highlights: transportation engineering, civil engineering, surveying, planning, landscape architecture, urban design