Business developmentforColumbus AEC firms.
BD-AEC embeds a business development department for Columbus architecture, engineering, and construction firms. Senior leadership, market intelligence, creative capacity, and consistent execution give your principals a team behind their next stage of growth.
Outsourced growth infrastructure
A department behind your growth
Leadership, intelligence, creative capacity, and follow-through, working together as part of your firm.
01
Strategy
Choose the work worth pursuing. Market intelligence and Creative Mapping connect your strengths with the right buyers, partners, and opportunities.
02
Creativity
Give buyers a reason to remember you. Positioning, story, and proposals turn technical expertise into a clear case for choosing your firm.
03
Execution
Keep the work moving. Outreach, relationships, pursuit coordination, and regular reviews turn decisions into a repeatable business development practice. Kinetic Rebalance adjusts the effort as evidence changes, including doing less.
Strategy + Creativity + Execution = Growth
The strategy + creativity principle comes from our partners at BLDG Brands. BD-AEC adds execution.
Scott leads the relationship as CEO and Strategic Partner. The department brings the capacity around him. Your principals stay involved in technical decisions and key relationships; we establish the rhythm and carry the work forward together.
Explore the embedded departmentThe Columbus market
Who buys design and construction here
Columbus is one of the best-funded AEC markets in the Midwest, and the work concentrates around a short list of owners running enormous capital programs. About 633 design and construction firms compete here, including 303 engineering firms, all chasing a pipeline moving at mega-project speed.
Columbus buys design and construction at a scale few Midwest metros can match, and the money flows from a handful of named owners. Intel's $28 billion Silicon Heartland campus in New Albany is a live construction zone pulling supplier, road, and utility work across Licking County, and the $3.5 billion Honda-LG battery plant near Jeffersonville is doing the same in Fayette County. Healthcare is just as concentrated: Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center opened its $2 billion, 26-story University Hospital tower in early 2026, OhioHealth is spending over a billion across Riverside and Grant, and Nationwide Children's is mid-build on a $730 million program including a 14-story tower and the Big Lots Behavioral Health Pavilion. The $2 billion John Glenn terminal runs under Hensel Phelps as construction manager. That's more capital in motion than almost anywhere on the corridor.
It's also a deep AEC town, not an open one. Columbus mixes homegrown firms with nationals that have planted flags to chase Intel and the health-system boom, and the same owners, program managers, and prime relationships recur on job after job. The corporate base runs just as deep, with five Fortune 500 headquarters here in Nationwide, American Electric Power, Cardinal Health, Huntington Bancshares, and Bath & Body Works, each a repeat buyer of facilities work. Being new to Columbus is not enough; you have to be known to the people who decide.
Major project programs, health systems, ODOT District 6, and airport owners give Columbus firms several distinct routes to work. Each needs its own research, relationships, and pursuit plan. BD-AEC brings strategy, creativity, and execution together in an embedded department, connecting market intelligence with relationships, positioning, and pursuit support. Your principals contribute the technical judgment; our team helps carry the work forward.
U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns (NAICS 5413, 2022)
Mega-projects & manufacturing
Intel's $28B Silicon Heartland campus in New Albany, the $3.5B Honda-LG battery plant near Jeffersonville, and the wave of supplier, road, and utility work feeding both.
Healthcare systems
Ohio State's Wexner Medical Center and its $2B University Hospital tower, OhioHealth's over $1B across Riverside and Grant, and Nationwide Children's $730M expansion program.
Higher education & institutional
The Ohio State University's Framework 2.0 campus program, plus the region's K-12 capital work and the research build-out riding the Intel corridor.
Corporate & HQ
Five Fortune 500 headquarters here: Nationwide, American Electric Power, Cardinal Health in Dublin, Huntington Bancshares, and Bath & Body Works, all repeat buyers of facilities work.
Public infrastructure
ODOT District 6, the Columbus Regional Airport Authority's $2B John Glenn terminal under Hensel Phelps, and the voter-approved LinkUS bus rapid transit program at COTA.
RFPs and bids
Where Columbus architecture and engineering work gets advertised
These are the agencies and institutions that put architecture and engineering work out to bid in Columbus, and the portals where they post it. Bookmark them. Winning the work is a different job from finding it, and finding it is the part you can do yourself.
City of Columbus, Department of Public Service
Roadway, bridge, intersection and traffic design plus corridor and thoroughfare planning; construction IFBs run through its own Bid Express storefront while design and planning RFQs run through the city's Bonfire portal (open examples: Intersection at Kimberly Pk N/E, Southeast Area Growth Management and Thoroughfare Plan).
City of Columbus, Department of Public Utilities (public brand: Columbus Water & Power)
Water, water reclamation (formerly Sewerage and Drainage) and power capital work; publishes a forward-looking Engineering/Design Project Listing PDF of anticipated utility RFPs, refreshed the last business day of each month, alongside a separate construction listing.
Ohio Department of Transportation, District 6 (Columbus Area)
State highway design, bridge, environmental, survey and construction inspection consulting for the Columbus counties, run from 400 E. William Street in Delaware; ODOT Central Office at 1980 W. Broad Street in Columbus administers prequalification and the consultant postings for the whole state.
Franklin County Engineer's Office
Design and inspection consulting for 271 miles of county roadway and 351 county bridges plus ditches, drains and stormwater facilities; explicitly runs a four-step QBS process of determine need, advertise and solicit Letters of Interest, evaluate SOQs, then negotiate scope and fees.
The Ohio State University
Architect/Engineer, Criteria A/E, commissioning and specialty consultant work on the largest single-campus building program in the metro; advertises through the state OFCC RFQ table rather than its own site (live example: OSU-270001 Midwest Campus Chilled Water Connection, roughly $10.6M).
Columbus City Schools, Department of Capital Improvements
Design services packages for classroom, auditorium, gymnasium, building envelope, roofing and outdoor athletics work, including CM at Risk delivery; RFQs are issued in seasonal phases (for example RFQ-27001 Phase A and B for Summer 2027) and all submissions must come through Public Purchase.
Columbus Regional Airport Authority
Airside and landside civil engineering, bridge and culvert inspection, pavement and drainage design, and facility work at John Glenn Columbus International (CMH) and Rickenbacker (LCK).
Where solicitations are posted
- City of Columbus Procurement Portal (Bonfire): where the city posts its professional design, engineering and planning RFQs
- City of Columbus Vendor Services: vendor registration and the destination behind the city's "Notices to Bid" link
- Ohio Facilities Construction Commission: Qualifications-Based Selection RFQs (carries Ohio State and Columbus State A/E advertisements)
- Franklin County Purchasing Department: Bid Opportunities
- ODOT Programmatic Consultant Project Postings
How selection works here
Ohio makes QBS the law rather than a courtesy: ORC 153.65 through 153.73 governs professional design services, ORC 153.691 forbids a public authority from asking for any fee estimate or proposal before firms are selected and ranked, and ORC 153.69 requires ranking no fewer than three firms and then negotiating with the top-ranked one, dropping to the next only if talks fail. The practical Columbus consequence lives in ORC 153.71(B): design fees of $25,000 or less can be awarded directly to the most qualified firm, and fees above $25,000 but under $50,000 can be awarded without a fresh advertisement to a firm that already has a current statement of qualifications on file from within the preceding year, so keeping an annual SOQ lodged with the Franklin County Engineer, the city departments and the suburbs is how small on-call work actually gets handed out here. Three Columbus-specific traps: the City of Columbus splits solicitations across three unconnected systems (Bonfire for design and planning RFQs, Vendor Services on Dynamics 365 for goods and general services, and a Bid Express storefront for Department of Public Service construction), Ohio State and Columbus State never advertise A/E work on their own procurement pages but on the OFCC table using state form F110-330 with placement on a "List of Professionals" by discipline, and ODOT requires both category-by-category technical prequalification and an annual financial cost submission before a firm can even submit a Letter of Interest on a District 6 posting.
The Columbus bid watchlist
Finding the work is a job in itself. Once a quarter we send this page's market to your inbox: new federal awards in the Columbus metro, buyer moves, and portal changes. No pitch, just the market.
Email scott@bd-aec.com with the subject "Columbus bid watchlist" and we'll add you.
Federal market
Federal AEC spending in Columbus
Federal agencies obligated $111M for architecture, engineering, and construction work in the Columbus metro over the last twelve months. Enough to matter as one channel among several, and small enough that a handful of firms hold most of it.
Obligated, 12 months
$111M
Across the 10-county Columbus, OH area.
Largest buyer
Department of Defense
$94M of the total.
Firms winning it
- International Towers LLC · $43M
- Battelle Memorial Institute · $22M
- V Line Services L.L.C · $9M
- Tuyan LLC · $5M
Federal prime contract awards, USASpending.gov, twelve months to August 2026. Federal work is one slice of this market and excludes state, municipal, institutional, and private owners.
By discipline
BD-AEC in Columbus, by discipline
We embed a coordinated BD department for Columbus AEC firms. We represent one firm per discipline, project type, and market. Open your discipline’s Columbus page on the main site for the local picture.
Civil Engineering
Columbus business development for civil engineering firms.
Structural Engineering
Columbus business development for structural engineering firms.
Architecture
Columbus business development for architecture firms.
Land Surveying & Geospatial
Columbus business development for land surveying & geospatial firms.
Landscape Architecture
Columbus business development for landscape architecture firms.
Construction Management
Columbus business development for construction management firms.
Transportation & Traffic Engineering
Columbus business development for transportation & traffic engineering firms.
Testing & Special Inspection
Columbus business development for testing & special inspection firms.
Why us, here
An embedded BD department for Columbus
BD-AEC runs business development in Columbus, and Scott knows the owners, primes, and agencies who decide here by name. In a capital-flush market where the same mega-project program managers, health-system facilities directors, and public owners recur on job after job, that knowledge is the difference between a cold proposal and a warm introduction. We work these relationships directly, not from a distance.
By policy, BD-AEC represents one firm per discipline, project type, and market, an ethical line that protects every client's pipeline. For a Columbus firm, that means an exclusive BD partner who will never walk your relationships across the street to a competitor chasing the same Intel, Wexner, or airport work.
Questions
Straight answers
Does BD-AEC know the Columbus market?
Yes. BD-AEC runs business development in Columbus, and Scott knows the owners, primes, and public agencies here by name, from the mega-project program managers on the Intel and Honda-LG builds to the health-system facilities directors and the ODOT District 6 owners. He works them directly, not from a distance.
What kind of AEC firms do you represent in Columbus?
Principal-led architecture, engineering, construction, and specialty firms, typically $500K to $20M in annual revenue, that need a more consistent growth function. We bring leadership, intelligence, creative capacity, and execution around the principals. By policy, we represent one firm per discipline, project type, and market, so we don't represent competing interests.
How is an embedded BD department different from hiring a BD director?
A strong internal hire can be the right choice when you have the budget, support, and work to sustain the role. BD-AEC brings a coordinated function: senior leadership, market intelligence, positioning, proposals and SOQs, relationships, and execution. If you're looking for fractional business development, this is a department model with capacity around the leader. We still need onboarding, access to your expertise, and your principals' participation in key decisions.
Columbus is booming and drawing national firms. Can a mid-sized local firm still compete?
Yes, but not by being the low number from a firm nobody knows. The mega-project owners, health systems, and program managers here hire on reputation and relationships, and much of the real work is teaming and subconsultant scopes under the primes. We position your firm with the people who decide, so you're the known quantity when the work comes up, not the stranger underbidding for a seat.
How do we start?
Tell us about your firm and your market using the form below. Scott will respond within one business day to set up a discovery call and tell you honestly whether your discipline and market are open.
Your next move
Build your next chapter in Columbus.
Tell us where you want your firm to go and what's getting in the way. We'll look at your market, your current capacity, and whether an embedded BD department is the right fit.
Scott Mann
CEO | Strategic Partner
Scott will respond within one business day. Your first conversation covers your goals, availability in your discipline and market, and a practical next step.
Let's talk about your firm
A few details help Scott prepare for a useful conversation.
This requests a conversation. Scott will follow up to arrange a time. How we use your information.