Columbus has an investment opportunity for you.

For the first time in decades, individual investors will be able to buy a piece of the city’s debt portfolio as the city prepares to sell about $400 million in bonds for capital projects.

City officials are calling the bond sale “Invest in Us” and already have worked with about a dozen brokerages to make buying the bonds easier for individuals who hold accounts with them.

“We ask our citizens to support our voted bond initiatives,” Auditor Megan Kilgore said. “Rarely do they have the opportunity to invest in their own city.”

Columbus periodically asks voters for permission to raise property taxes if more revenue is needed to repay debt from capital projects, including recreation centers, resurfaced roads and water and sewer infrastructure. The city has never had to raise property taxes, but the promise from voters helps it get better interest rates.

Voters approved a $950 million bond package in 2016, for example, and the Columbus City Council voted Monday to issue bonds from that package and others voters had previously approved. The bonds that the city will sell in October will fund a new Linden Community Recreation Center, wider sidewalks in the Short North and an upgraded Route 315 interchange at North Broadway, among millions of dollars in other capital projects.

The bonds will be sold Oct. 2-3, with priority sale to individual buyers on Oct. 2. The city is offering the bonds in denominations of $5,000 and $1,000, the lowest it could go without unduly raising the cost of issuing the debt, Kilgore said.

“We’ve tried to eliminate all of the barriers for citizens to invest in their community,” she said.

The city will not sell the bonds directly. Buyers must have an account with one of the brokerage firms that is participating in the sale or use another brokerage that can place an order with one of those that is participating. Yield on the bonds will be determined on Oct. 3.

Kilgore said her office researched local brokerages to find out which ones held the most local accounts so that the buying process would be easiest for the most potential investors.

City officials say the investment is rock solid. All three ratings agencies affirmed the city’s AAA bond rating ahead of the sale. The bond sale will be divided into four series, with the largest one, about $339 million, maturing in 2039. The other three series will mature in 2034.

After the next bond sale, the city will have about $4.6 billion in debt.

More information, including a list of participating brokerage firms, is available at columbus.gov/buybonds.

rrouan@dispatch.com

@RickRouan