The Smoot Construction Company

The Smoot Construction Company is a Columbus, Ohio general contractor and construction manager, one of the largest Black-owned construction firms in the United States and a frequent joint venture partner on large public and institutional work. The firm builds across stadiums, airports, convention centers, higher education and civic projects, and operates from Columbus with additional offices including Indianapolis. In August 2026 Smoot was named alongside Mortenson and Clark Construction on the $3.8 billion Washington Commanders stadium at the RFK campus. A related Washington, D.C. entity, Smoot Construction Company of Washington DC, is listed separately in this directory.

Numbers give the clearest picture of where Smoot’s volume actually sits. The company counts 41 Ohio State University partnerships over more than 50 years, 179 PK-12 school projects across 33 school districts, 48 healthcare facility builds, 70 water and wastewater plant projects and tunnels, 14 aviation facilities totaling more than three million square feet, and over 20 completed projects for the Columbus Zoo & Aquarium. That distribution says something a project list alone does not: the institutional and municipal repeat work is the base of the business, not a sideline to the marquee stadium jobs.

Smoot also describes a pattern of entering new building types cold. In 1998 the firm had never built a casino; a client gave it the first one and it has since built six. In 2001 it had never built a professional sports arena; it has since built four. The company frames this as living for a challenge, and the track record of clients extending that kind of first shot is itself a reference.

Internally the operating standard is C.H.I.P.P. – Character, Humility, Integrity, Pride, Performance. Smoot says every employee learns it on day one and that it functions as the filter for each action, decision and hire. On the question of its minority foundation, the company is direct about the framing it prefers: not a minority construction company, but an accomplished construction company founded and still led by leaders who happen to be minorities.

The business dates to 1946 and is now in its fourth generation of family leadership, with Lewis R. Smoot serving as chairman and CEO and Lewis Smoot Jr. as president. Two offices carry the work: the Columbus headquarters at 1907 Leonard Ave. and an Indianapolis office at 2001 West 18th Street. Recent featured projects span both markets – the JW Marriott in Indianapolis, Kenyon West Quad in Gambier, Ohio, the Goodale Parking Garage in Columbus, and Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital in Indianapolis.

For an owner evaluating Smoot, the useful screen is repeat institutional volume in Ohio and Indiana rather than single headline projects.