By 1808Delaware
Sunbury’s latest City Manager report shows a city working on several fronts at once, from a near-term sewer construction project and a major park investment to grant-backed street planning and smaller safety upgrades residents will notice right away. The report, dated March 4, outlines both large capital work and the everyday public works efforts that often matter just as much to people on the ground.
One of the most significant items is Phase 2A of the Little Walnut Creek Interceptor project, now out for bid. The city says the work calls for extending a 36-inch sanitary sewer about 560 feet at the intersection of Golf Course Road and Cheshire Road, ahead of the future Delaware County roundabout planned there. Bids are due at 2:00 PM on March 13 at the Sunbury Municipal Building, with construction expected to begin this spring and continue into the fall. The engineer’s estimate for this segment is $620,000.
That project also appears to be one piece of a much larger sewer buildout. Ohio EPA’s current WPCLF project list includes “Little Walnut Creek Interceptor Sewer Phase 2” in Sunbury with $400,000 in design funding and a separate $4.6 million construction listing, suggesting the city’s current Phase 2A bid is an early segment of a broader interceptor effort along Little Walnut Creek rather than a stand-alone project.
Another major item is JR Smith Park, where long-anticipated improvements are finally moving toward visible construction. The March 4 report says 2K General Contractors plans to mobilize within the next two weeks, with substantial completion anticipated by September. A February 4 City Manager report adds that bond financing for $2,560,000 closed on February 12 and that city staff had been working with the contractor on a schedule aimed at allowing use of at least part of the park before the new school year begins in August. Environmental Design Group has been selected for contract administration and construction inspection under a $200,000 agreement.
Publicly available city materials still leave some of the park’s final design details vague, but what is clear is that this is one of Sunbury’s larger parks-and-recreation investments now shifting from planning to construction. Residents should likely expect increasingly visible activity at the site this spring as that bond-funded work gets underway. That is a fair inference from the city’s financing and construction timeline, even if the full public-facing scope has not been spelled out in the same level of detail as some other projects.
The city also reported two grant wins. Sunbury received an $80,000 OPWC grant for Cherry Street and Morning Street intersection improvements, and that work is expected to be bid with the 2026 Street Improvement Plan. A March 4 Services Committee agenda identifies that item more specifically as “Cherry Street and Morning Street Intersection Improvements (mountable curb),” adding a little more definition to the project.
Sunbury was also selected by ODOT for consulting-services funding to develop an Active Transportation Plan. The city has not yet finalized the scope or fee, but committee materials confirm that next steps are now under discussion. In practical terms, that means Sunbury is positioning itself to do more formal planning around pedestrian, bicycle, and related connectivity issues as growth continues.
Beyond the headline projects, the report includes several smaller but important service updates. A new guardrail has been installed at the cemetery to prevent vehicles from driving or sliding into Prairie Run Creek, addressing what the city says had been a missing safety feature for at least four years. A fallen tree was also removed from Prairie Run Creek at Sunbury Estates after concerns that it was obstructing water flow and could contribute to upstream flooding near nearby homes.
The city also installed new crosswalk signs on North Miller Drive to improve safety for students crossing the street on the way to a bus stop or school. For now, that is the clearest confirmed update in the written report.
Finally, the report puts a price tag on winter response. Sunbury recorded about $16,000 in added costs tied to the heavy snowstorm that hit in late January 2026. Those numbers were forwarded to the Delaware County Emergency Management Agency, but countywide totals did not reach the threshold needed to trigger emergency reimbursement.
Taken together, the update shows a city trying to stay ahead of growth pressures while still handling the less glamorous work of drainage, safety, and maintenance. The sewer expansion and JR Smith Park improvements point to bigger changes ahead, while the guardrail, creek clearing, crosswalk signs, and storm response show the day-to-day demands that continue regardless of the size of the capital plan.
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