Northwest Ohio

Commercial Construction in Northwest Ohio 

Eighteen counties anchored on Toledo, running south down the I-75 corridor through Lima and west to the Indiana line. Prodigy Building Solutions works with the school districts, cities, villages, townships and counties across all of them, and most of what we build here is for public owners buying through cooperative contracts.

What We Do in Northwest Ohio

Prodigy is a single source for building work: building renovations and additions, commercial roofing, paving, HVAC, lighting, windows and doors, athletic facilities, career tech centers, theaters and auditoriums, storm damage restoration, and project management from design through closeout. We carry in-house engineering, architecture and project management, so the people who design your project are the people who run it.

Building Conditions in Northwest Ohio

Northwest Ohio is the bed of a drained Ice-Age lake, and the soils have never forgotten it. The Hoytville and Paulding series cover roughly a million acres between them; Paulding runs 60 to 80 percent clay in the subsoil, and both carry a perched water table that sits at or above the surface through winter and spring. The building code assigns clay and silty clay a presumptive bearing capacity of 1,500 pounds per square foot — the lowest class in the table.

The Great Black Swamp was drained by hand between the 1850s and the 1880s, and the Maumee watershed still carries more than 16,000 miles of drainage ditch with subsurface tile under 50 to 80 percent of the farmland. That network is the reason the ground is buildable. It is also the reason site drainage here has to be designed rather than assumed.

For pavement, ODOT's own rules point the way: high-plasticity clays get lime stabilization at around 5 percent by weight, or undercut up to 36 inches. Subgrade counts as unstable below 12 blows per foot or more than 3 percent over optimum moisture. This is exactly why we core and load-test before we design a section rather than replacing in kind — on these soils, replacing in kind is how you buy the same failure twice.

Along the Lucas, Ottawa and Sandusky shoreline, add open-water wind exposure and lake level. Lake Erie set record highs in both 2019 and 2020, and roughly 95 percent of Ohio's shoreline is eroding. Frost depth here is 36 inches and the air freezing index runs about 1,500 against 1,048 in Columbus — the same Severe weathering classification as the rest of Ohio, applied harder.

Cooperative Purchasing in Northwest Ohio

Public owners anywhere in Ohio can buy Prodigy's work through the cooperative contracts we hold. Buying through a co-op is a pre-bid path — the competitive process happens at the co-op level, so your district or municipality can move on a project without running its own procurement cycle.

Every contract below is available to public entities across Ohio, including all eighteen Northwest Ohio counties:

• 791 Coop
• Equalis Gordian
• OSC (Ohio School Council)
• Sourcewell Gordian
• SWOEPC (Southwestern Ohio Educational Purchasing Council)
• TIPS (The Interlocal Purchasing System)
• TOP-C (The Ohio Purchasing Council)
• Vizient Gordian

Which one fits depends on your entity type, the scope of work and any memberships you already hold. Not sure? Call us and we'll walk through it — there's no cost to find out.

Who We Serve in Northwest Ohio

Northwest Ohio covers 18 counties — Allen, Auglaize, Defiance, Fulton, Hancock, Hardin, Henry, Lucas, Mercer, Ottawa, Paulding, Putnam, Sandusky, Seneca, Van Wert, Williams, Wood and Wyandot — with 111 public school districts and 27 cities of 5,000 or more.

Public school districts (111)
Allen (9) Allen East Local · Bath Local · Bluffton Exempted Village · Delphos City · Elida Local · Lima City · Perry Local · Shawnee Local · Spencerville Local
Auglaize (6) Minster Local · New Bremen Local · New Knoxville Local · St Marys City · Wapakoneta City · Waynesfield-Goshen Local
Defiance (5) Ayersville Local · Central Local · Defiance City · Hicksville Exempted Village · Northeastern Local
Fulton (7) Archbold-Area Local · Evergreen Local · Fayette Local · Pettisville Local · Pike-Delta-York Local · Swanton Local · Wauseon Exempted Village
Hancock (9) Arcadia Local · Arlington Local · Cory-Rawson Local · Findlay City · Liberty-Benton Local · McComb Local · Riverdale Local · Van Buren Local · Vanlue Local
Hardin (5) Ada Exempted Village · Hardin Northern Local · Kenton City · Ridgemont Local · Upper Scioto Valley Local
Henry (4) Holgate Local · Liberty Center Local · Napoleon Area City · Patrick Henry Local
Lucas (8) Anthony Wayne Local · Maumee City · Oregon City · Ottawa Hills Local · Springfield Local · Sylvania Schools · Toledo City · Washington Local
Mercer (6) Celina City · Coldwater Exempted Village · Fort Recovery Local · Marion Local · Parkway Local · St Henry Consolidated Local
Ottawa (7) Benton Carroll Salem Local · Danbury Local · Genoa Area Local · Middle Bass Local · North Bass Local · Port Clinton City · Put-In-Bay Local
Paulding (3) Antwerp Local · Paulding Exempted Village · Wayne Trace Local
Putnam (9) Columbus Grove Local · Continental Local · Jennings Local · Kalida Local · Leipsic Local · Miller City-New Cleveland Local · Ottawa-Glandorf Local · Ottoville Local · Pandora-Gilboa Local
Sandusky (5) Clyde-Green Springs Exempted Village · Fremont City · Gibsonburg Exempted Village · Lakota Local · Woodmore Local
Seneca (6) Fostoria City · Hopewell-Loudon Local · New Riegel Local · Old Fort Local · Seneca East Local · Tiffin City Schools
Van Wert (3) Crestview Local · Lincolnview Local · Van Wert City
Williams (7) Bryan City · Edgerton Local · Edon Northwest Local · Millcreek-West Unity Local · Montpelier Exempted Village · North Central Local · Stryker Local
Wood (9) Bowling Green City · Eastwood Local · Elmwood Local · Lake Local · North Baltimore Local · Northwood Local Schools · Otsego Local · Perrysburg Exempted Village · Rossford Exempted Village
Wyandot (3) Carey Exempted Village Schools · Mohawk Local · Upper Sandusky Exempted Village

Cities of 5,000 or more (27)
Allen (2) Delphos · Lima
Auglaize (1) Wapakoneta
Defiance (1) Defiance
Fulton (1) Wauseon
Hancock (1) Findlay
Hardin (1) Kenton
Henry (1) Napoleon
Lucas (6) Maumee · Oregon · Sylvania · Toledo · Waterville · Whitehouse
Mercer (1) Celina
Ottawa (1) Port Clinton
Sandusky (2) Clyde · Fremont
Seneca (2) Fostoria · Tiffin
Van Wert (1) Van Wert
Williams (1) Bryan
Wood (4) Bowling Green · Northwood · Perrysburg · Rossford
Wyandot (1) Upper Sandusky

Looking for a different part of Ohio? Southwest Ohio · Western Ohio · Central Ohio · Northeast Ohio · Southeast Ohio

About Northwest Ohio

The Veterans' Glass City Skyway carries I-280 over the Maumee on twin 612-foot spans hung from a single 400-foot pylon, built from 3,050 precast segments and 185,000 cubic yards of concrete. It was the first cradle stay-cable system used in the United States, and it opened in 2007 on a $220 million contract — the largest single project in ODOT's history. Nearby, the Toledo Museum of Art's Glass Pavilion wrapped 74,000 square feet in more than 360 glass panels, many of them curved, each weighing up to 1,500 pounds.

Common Questions

Do you work with school districts in Lucas and Wood counties?
Yes. We work across all eighteen Northwest Ohio counties, from Williams and Fulton on the Indiana and Michigan lines down through Allen and Mercer. The Recent Projects section below shows what we have finished nearby, and we're glad to give you a reference from a district near you.

Which cooperative purchasing contracts can a Northwest Ohio district or city use?
All of them. Every cooperative contract we hold is available to public entities anywhere in Ohio, including all eighteen Northwest Ohio counties. Which one fits depends on the entity type, the scope of work and whether you already hold a membership. We'll help you figure that out before you commit to anything.

What size projects do you take on?
Our sweet spot is complex renovation work in the $250,000 to $20 million range, and we do a lot of projects in the $250,000 to $500,000 band. Very small scopes — a short stretch of sidewalk, a single repair — are usually better handled by a local contractor, and we'll tell you so.

Do you self-perform the work or subcontract it?
Both, depending on the trade. We carry in-house engineering, architecture, project management and general labor for some trades, and we buy all material ourselves rather than passing that to subcontractors. That means pre-construction planning has to be exact, which is a large part of why our projects run the way they do.

We've never worked with Prodigy. How does a project start?
Usually with a conversation and a walk-through. We develop the project with you to fit the budget, bring contractors in during budgeting rather than after, and charge little or nothing for the initial design work. You'll know what it costs before you're committed.

Do you handle design as well as construction?
Yes. We lead with engineering — function first, then architecture — and the engineers who design a project also manage it, so small problems get corrected in the field instead of becoming change orders. On large or highly specialized work we partner with outside architecture and engineering firms, and you pay for that only as it's needed.

Talk to Someone in Northwest Ohio

Eric Groh
Northwest Ohio · Toledo
(513) 720-1872

Call Eric directly about a project, a budget number, or a question about cooperative purchasing. Eric covers both Northwest Ohio and Western Ohio, so he knows the Toledo and Dayton markets equally well.