Bank Run Metro Park: Columbus's Newest Park Preview 2026

I drove out to Lockbourne on a Tuesday in May, mostly because I couldn't help myself. Columbus is getting a brand-new Metro Park, and the place it's being built on is one I half-remembered from a friend's birthday party decades ago. Bank Run Metro Park sits on the old Hoover YMCA Park grounds off Rohr Road, and standing at the edge of that old limestone quarry, looking down at the water sitting still and green at the bottom, I felt the same thing I felt as a kid: like the afternoon could go on forever and nobody was going to check the time.

Here's the honest part, and I want to lead with it so nobody drives out expecting more than is there yet. The trails aren't open. As of summer 2026, the natural side of Bank Run — the woods, the fields, the water access, the actual hiking — is still being built, with the Metro Parks system saying it expects that part to open later in 2026. What is open is the event center, and a paved 5K loop, and a whole lot of promise. So consider this less a trail guide and more a scouting report. I went, I poked around, I talked to a couple of people, and I came back convinced this one is worth watching.

Bank Run at a Glance

• Location: 1570 Rohr Rd, Lockbourne, Ohio (between Lockbourne and Obetz, southeast of Columbus)
• System: Columbus and Franklin County Metro Parks — the system's 22nd park
• Open now: Event center, two indoor lodges, outdoor shelters, a paved 5K loop
• Coming later in 2026: Hiking trails, quarry-lake paddling, fishing, open fields and woods
• Former life: Hoover YMCA Park and an adjacent limestone quarry
• Good for: Keeping an eye on. Big events now, real hiking soon.

A quarry, a YMCA camp, and a second life

Before it was anything official, this land was where a lot of central Ohio kids spent their summers. Long stretches of it were the Hoover YMCA Park — the kind of place where you'd fly down a slide, wander into the trees looking for frogs, and eat a cooler-warmed cake under a shelter while the afternoon melted. Right next door, crews were pulling stone out of a working limestone quarry. Two very different uses of the same patch of Franklin County, sitting side by side for years.

The Metro Parks system took the whole thing on and started reimagining it as two connected experiences. One half is built for gathering. The other half, still on the way, is built for getting lost in the good way — fields, woods, water, and the quiet you go to a park to find.

I like that they didn't bulldoze the quarry and pretend it was never there. That deep cut in the limestone is going to be the heart of the place. The plan calls for a quarry lake you can actually kayak and paddleboard on, with fishing too. There's something honest about a park that takes an industrial scar and turns it into the best view on the property. Ohio has a few of these reclaimed-quarry parks now — Quarry Trails out on the west side did the same trick — and they tend to become the parks people brag about.

What's actually open right now

The first thing to swing wide was the Bank Run Event Center, and I'll be straight with you: it's a bigger deal than I expected for a Metro Park. We're not talking about a couple of picnic tables and a roof. There are two indoor lodges that each hold up to 99 people, plus outdoor shelters that scale way up — one fits around 120, and the largest can handle close to 300. There's a stage wired for power, built for concerts and presentations. If you've got a wedding, a reunion, or a nonprofit fundraiser to plan, this is a genuine venue sitting in the middle of green space, and groups are already booking it for 2026 and 2027.

For those of us who just want to move, the piece that matters most is the paved 5K loop. It was laid out with races and events in mind, and it's open. The morning I walked part of it, it was flat, smooth, and quiet — the kind of surface that's friendly to strollers, wheelchairs, new runners, and anybody easing back into walking after a rough winter. It's not a wilderness trail. It's a clean, accessible loop with a quarry view, and on a clear day that's plenty.

There was a grand-opening preview event on May 16 with a 5K run and walk, live music, and food trucks, and from what I could tell, the whole point was to show the community what the space feels like when it's actually being used. Smart move. A park is easier to love once you've stood in it with a coffee and a band playing.

The part I'm really waiting for

The trails. Obviously the trails.

Once the natural side opens, Metro Parks says Bank Run will feel a lot more like the parks people already know — open fields, wooded areas, and water views, with room for walking, running, kayaking, and fishing. The quarry lake is the headline. Paddling a flatwater lake ringed by old quarry walls is a genuinely different central-Ohio experience, and I'll be first in line with a rented kayak the week it opens.

There's also a 100-foot slide in the plans — they've been calling it the "Granddaddy Slide" — which is the kind of detail that tells you who this park is really for. Families. Birthday parties. The exact crowd that filled this place when it was the YMCA park. That continuity matters. A lot of new parks feel designed by a committee; this one feels like it remembers what it used to be.

I'm not going to pretend I've hiked trails that don't exist yet. When they open, I'll come back, walk every loop, and write the real guide — distances, surfaces, where the good overlooks are, which lot to park in. For now, file Bank Run under "soon," and check the Metro Parks site before you make the drive, because an opening date hadn't been pinned down when I visited.

Why central Ohio keeps building parks

Bank Run isn't arriving alone. It's the 22nd park in the Columbus and Franklin County Metro Parks system, and its sibling, Great Southern Metro Park on the city's South Side, opened earlier in 2026 as number 21. Two new Metro Parks in a single year is not normal. So what's going on?

Part of it is simple math. Ohio's outdoor-recreation economy is enormous — somewhere around $20 billion a year, supporting well over a hundred thousand jobs across the state. Trails, boat ramps, and campgrounds aren't just nice-to-haves anymore; they're economic engines, and planners have noticed. When a region invests in green space, the visitors and the spending follow.

But there's a quieter reason I like better. Both of these new parks are built on land that used to be something else. Great Southern sits on ground that was once a city park and, later, a well-known homeless encampment. Bank Run is a former YMCA park and a working quarry. The system isn't carving new parks out of untouched countryside — it's reclaiming the leftover, used-up, overlooked corners of the county and handing them back to people as something green. Quarry Trails Metro Park on the west side did the same thing a few years ago with an old stone quarry, and it's become one of the most popular parks in the system.

That's the lineage Bank Run is stepping into. Take a scarred industrial site, let nature back in, add trails and water access, and watch a neighborhood fall in love with it. It works almost every time.

Where to hike right now while you wait

Here's the thing about waiting: the southeast and south sides of Columbus are loaded with Metro Parks that are open today, and most of them are a short drive from Bank Run. If you've got the itch, point the car at one of these. I've walked all of them, more than once.

Three Creeks Metro Park is my first pick for this corner of the county. Where Big Walnut, Alum, and Blacklick creeks come together, you get a genuinely big park with flat, easy paved and crushed-gravel trails, good birding along the water, and enough mileage to make a real morning of it. Bring binoculars; the confluence pulls in herons and the occasional bald eagle.

Walnut Woods Metro Park down in Groveport is the underrated one. The Tall Pines area smells like a north-woods campground in July, and the trails loop through prairie and woodland without ever getting hard. It's a great one for kids who are still building up their hiking legs.

Slate Run Metro Park near Canal Winchester pairs a quiet wetland boardwalk with a working 1880s living historical farm. You can do a real hike and then go watch draft horses and heritage-breed pigs, which is an easy sell if you're dragging a skeptical family member along.

Pickerington Ponds is the birding heavyweight — a state-designated important bird area where the trails skirt marsh and open water. Slower-paced, quieter, and worth it if you'd rather watch wildlife than rack up miles.

Chestnut Ridge Metro Park down toward Carroll is the one to pick if you actually want some elevation — its hilltop boardwalk climbs to one of the few real long-range views in the area, and on a clear day you can see the downtown Columbus skyline floating on the horizon. It's a genuine workout by central-Ohio standards, and a nice contrast to all the flat trails closer in.

And Great Southern Metro Park, Bank Run's sibling that opened earlier in 2026 over on the South Side, is the closest preview of what new Metro Parks are doing right now. If you want to see how a brand-new park feels, start there.

Getting there and a few honest notes

Bank Run is at 1570 Rohr Road in Lockbourne, tucked between Lockbourne and Obetz on the southeast edge of the metro. From I-270, it's a quick run south, and you'll find it well before you hit the truly rural stretches of Pickaway County. Parking is built out around the event center.

A few things to keep in mind on a visit right now:

• The trails are not open yet. Come for the 5K loop and the quarry overlook, not for a backcountry hike.
• Check before you go. The natural-area opening was still listed as "later in 2026" when I visited, with no firm date. The Metro Parks website is the place to confirm.
• The event center is bookable. If you're planning a wedding or a big gathering, this is a real venue — groups can email the park's special-events team to start the process.
• Bring water and sun protection. That paved loop runs through open, reclaimed ground, and there's not much shade yet. The young trees need a few more summers.

I'll admit I left a little impatient. Standing at the rim of that old quarry, watching the light move on the water, it's easy to picture the version of this park that's coming — kayaks out on the lake, kids screaming down a hundred-foot slide, a trail disappearing into trees that are finally tall enough to throw shade. It's not here yet. But it's close, and it's being built with real care, and central Ohio doesn't get a 22nd Metro Park very often.

Keep this one on your list. I'll see you out there once the trails open.

Nearby trails to explore

• Chestnut Ridge Metro Park: a hilltop boardwalk with skyline views
• Three Creeks Metro Park: where three central Ohio creeks meet
• Walnut Woods Metro Park: prairie and pine in Groveport
• Slate Run Metro Park: wetland boardwalk plus a living historical farm
• Pickerington Ponds: central Ohio's birding hotspot
• Great Southern Metro Park: Columbus's other brand-new park