Symbolic Beam Dedicated as Major Build Takes Shape
City's Largest Current Project Reaches Another Mile Marker
Construction of Hilliard’s Recreation and Wellness Campus reached a significant waypoint in early February with a beam-topping ceremony at the future site that is to serve as the centerpiece of the campus.
“The beam ceremony celebrates the progress that has been made during the construction phase of The Well complex (when) we pause and reflect on where we started and where we are headed,” Hilliard Recreation and Parks Director Ed Merritt said Feb. 6.
“In the next couple of months, we will get the roof on, walls up, and you will really see the building take form,” Merritt said.
The 105,000 square-foot facility at Scioto Darby and Alton Darby Creek roads is expected to open in mid-2025 just west of Roger A. Reynolds Municipal Park and will include other amenities.
Next up, with the skeletal structure of the building completed, work will start on the mechanical, electrical and plumbing, Merritt said.
Construction of the indoor pools is set to begin in June.
The final cost for the campus is $106.3 million, according to Don McCarthy, president of McCarthy Consulting, the firm the city hired to manage the project.
Owing to unforeseen soil conditions on the 125-acre parcel on which the campus is being built, and to general inflationary factors, the project is over budget, McCarthy said previously.
Multi-Year Effort to Update City's Public Recreation Facilities 'Well' Under Way
Construction rolls ahead on Hilliard’s Recreation and Wellness Campus, just west of Roger A. Reynolds Municipal Park. The project, owing to negative soil conditions on the 125-acre parcel on which the campus is built, and to gener…
More than two years ago, the project was originally budgeted at about $68 million but McCarty indicated from the outset that elevated water tables and other factors in the environmentally sensitive area, coupled with inflationary and post-pandemic factors, that it was likely the project would exceed that amount.
The campus includes not only The Well, a 105,000-square-foot complex, but other components and amenities such as 20 natural-grass fields and two synthetic-turf fields, shelter houses and other supporting amenities for the athletic complex designed to attract regional tournaments to Hilliard.
It includes the extension of Cosgray Road from its current terminus at Scioto Darby Road through the campus via several roundabouts where it will meet Alton Darby Creek Road.
The project also includes restoration to the Clover Groff Run, a Big Darby Creek tributary to be widened to reduce soil erosion and improve water quality.
The campus is to include an inline 25,000 square-foot Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. OSU is leasing the site within in The Well and is to reimburse the city $5.7 million for its construction which is currently included in the $106.3 million overall project, according to David Ball, community relations director for Hilliard.
The medical center is to offer wellness, education, and clinical services including physical therapy, urgent care, orthopedic and sports-medicine providers, arthritis care, behavioral care, osteopathic manipulative therapy, nutrition counseling, and lifestyle medicine, Ball said.
“The integration of medical services and educational programming within The Well reinforces our commitment to fostering a holistic approach to health and wellness for our residents. This facility will provide convenient access to high quality care right here in Hilliard,” City Manager Michelle Crandall said.