Family & Childcare
A nine-story behavioral-health pavilion built as the largest of its kind on any U.S. pediatric campus, a science museum USA Today rated #1 in the country, and a zoo whose gorilla troop descends from the first gorilla ever born in captivity anywhere in the world.
Big Lots Behavioral Health Pavilion
The Big Lots Behavioral Health Pavilion opened on Nationwide Children's Hospital's Columbus campus in March 2020 -- a nine-story, 386,000-square-foot building the hospital describes as America's largest and most comprehensive center dedicated exclusively to child and adolescent behavioral and mental health on a pediatric medical campus. The $159 million project, funded in part by a $50 million gift from Big Lots and the Big Lots Foundation, houses inpatient psychiatry units, a dedicated psychiatric crisis department, a 12-bed youth crisis stabilization unit, and a Center for Suicide Prevention and Research.
Columbus Zoo and Aquarium
The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium is where Colo, the first gorilla ever born in captivity anywhere in the world, was born on December 22, 1956; her descendants still live at the zoo today. The zoo lost its Association of Zoos & Aquariums accreditation in 2021 amid a compensation scandal involving former leadership, then regained full AZA accreditation in March 2023 after inspectors found no major concerns. It's also one of only nine U.S. zoos that permanently house koalas, and its manatee-care program is one of only two facilities outside Florida rehabilitating rescued manatees.
COSI (Center of Science and Industry)
COSI, Columbus's science museum along the Scioto River, was named the #1 Science Museum in the United States by USA Today in 2020. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, it operated the largest outreach education program of any science museum in the country, reaching roughly 350,000 learners a year beyond its own 320,000-square-foot building, and its planetarium -- a 60-foot dome seating 220 -- is the largest in Ohio.