Columbus's Biggest Building Permits Top $66 Million in a Week

Columbus issued 28 new-construction building permits worth $66.8 million in the week of September 28 to October 4, 2026, the highest weekly total in the eight weeks CREN checked. Two projects, a 273-unit apartment cluster near the Dublin border and a commercial building on Harmon Avenue, made up $57.25 million of that total, about 86%.

How CREN counted this week's permits

A building permit is the city's legal sign-off to start construction. It records the site address, the applicant's declared construction cost, the unit count for housing, and the date the city issued it. CREN queried the City of Columbus's public Building Permits dataset, a feed the city releases into the public domain under a Creative Commons Zero waiver, for every new-structure permit issued between Sept. 28 and Oct. 4, 2026, then grouped permits sharing a parcel number into single projects before ranking them by declared value. One project can carry more than one structural permit, so a permit count is not a project count.

The week's two biggest projects

The single largest permit was a $27 million commercial filing at 1100 Harmon Ave. on Columbus's South Side, ZIP code 43223, paired with a second, $1.2 million permit at the same address for mechanical work, for a combined $28.2 million project.

The week's largest project by combined value sat on one 9.8-acre parcel in ZIP code 43016, near the Dublin-Columbus line, where the city issued four permits: three multifamily permits, for 119 units at 5151 Perrins Lane ($12.5 million), 118 units at 5211 Perrins Lane ($11.5 million), and 36 units at 5294 Haggerston Boulevard ($4.1 million), plus a fourth, $950,000 commercial permit with no listed units at 5180 Riggins Run. Together, the four permits total $29.05 million in declared value and 273 apartment units.

What property records confirm, and what they don't

Franklin County Auditor records show the parcel behind the Perrins Lane permits, parcel number 010296461, belongs to an entity called Havery Run LLC and was still classified as commercial vacant land with no recorded building value as of CREN's October 8, 2026 search, consistent with construction that has not yet broken ground. The Franklin County Auditor's property database was down for scheduled maintenance when CREN checked the Harmon Avenue parcel on the same day, so this week's reporting could not confirm who owns that site or what it will become, and CREN found no independent news coverage naming a developer for either project this week.

The rest of the week's top five

Three smaller permits round out the week's top five by declared value: a $1,011,668 single-family home permit at 1250 Briarmeadow Drive in ZIP 43235, in northwest Columbus; a $1 million commercial permit at 6250 Westbourne Avenue in ZIP 43035, on the metro area's northern edge; and a $650,000 single-family home permit at 504 W. 1st Ave. in ZIP 43201, near Short North.

How this week compares to recent weeks

Columbus's $66.8 million in new-structure permit value for the week of Sept. 28 to Oct. 4 topped every other week CREN checked going back to Aug. 10, 2026. The next-highest week, Sept. 21 to 27, totaled $48.5 million across 38 permits. The week of Sept. 7 to 13 carried a single $32 million permit, the largest of any week in the eight-week span, but that week's total declared value still came to only $37 million.

What to watch next

Declared construction value is the applicant's own cost estimate, not an appraisal or a sale price, and a permit is legal permission to build, not proof that construction has started. CREN will check the city's permit feed and the Franklin County Auditor's records again next week for site-plan filings or ownership records that could identify who is building the Harmon Avenue project and confirm that construction has started at the Perrins Lane site.