C.J. Mahan Construction Company, LLC

C.J. Mahan Construction Company is a heavy civil contractor based in Grove City, Ohio, in the Columbus metro area, with roughly four decades of work on bridges, marine structures and navigation infrastructure. The firm self-performs deep foundation work, including drilled shafts, driven steel piling and micro-piles, along with cofferdams, lock chambers and gate structures. Its portfolio runs through some of the largest inland waterway projects in the country: the Olmsted Lock and Dam major rehabilitation, bridge substructures and miter gate installation at the Kentucky Lock Addition, gate work at Montgomery Lock and Dam, and T-wall construction on the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal Lake Borgne Surge Barrier in Louisiana. In February 2026 the Army Corps of Engineers Nashville District awarded Mahan the final $192.1 million contract on the Chickamauga Lock replacement at Chattanooga. The company works primarily east of the Mississippi.

The company dates to 1972 and works from 3458 Lewis Centre Way. Mahan attributes its record to a short list: recruiting and developing core personnel, applying newer construction techniques and equipment, growing at a controlled pace, and financial conservatism.

The bridge portfolio is broader than substructure work alone. Mahan has built welded steel girder, cable-stayed steel and concrete, long-span steel truss, railroad, precast concrete and concrete segmental bridges, much of it from the water. Five of its bridges span the Ohio River and four are cable-stay designs. Named crossings include the U.S. Grant Bridge, the Pomeroy Mason Bridge, Clays Ferry Bridge, Lane Avenue Bridge and the Ledbetter Bridge truss erection.

Owners have included the Tennessee Valley Authority, several state departments of transportation and divisions of highways, and multiple Corps of Engineers districts. On the private side the firm has built an engine test facility for General Electric, worked for American Municipal Power, and handled Ohio River dock expansion plus a new barge dock at Marathon Petroleum’s Bordeaux Terminal on the Cumberland River.

Not all of the work sits on navigable water. Mahan replaced the 700-foot concrete spillway at Indian Lake in Logan County, Ohio, for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, a $7.6 million labyrinth weir design that was the first of its kind in the state. In Columbus it built the raw sewage pump building and a new effluent pump station and conduit at the Southerly wastewater treatment plant. It delivered Fort Washington Way contracts 6, 8 and 12, and design-build reconstruction on ODOT’s I-75/US 62 and I-275 projects. Through the Parsons Mahan joint venture it built a $100.8 million, roughly 2,844-foot steel plate girder bridge carrying I-40 over the White River for Arkansas.

Safety documentation is written to meet the Corps of Engineers EM 385-1-1 standard. Recent awards include ADSC safety awards in 2016 and 2017, an AGC of America safety award in the Federal and Heavy division in 2016, and a Safety Excellence Award from the Safety Council of Greater Columbus. Project recognition has come from the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Portland Cement Association, the Associated General Contractors of America and the Ohio Contractor’s Association.