Riverside Park pool, community center closer to re-opening following Hurricane Ian

The pool at Riverside Park is on its way to reopening (Photo via City of Oviedo on Facebook)

Nearly a year-and-a-half after Hurricane Ian tore through Oviedo, causing flooding and destruction throughout the city, a major facility is on its way to finally reopening.

The storm, which hit Florida in late September 2022, dumping nearly 24 inches of rain in a single night, damaging the Riverside Park pool and flooding the community center building. While Riverside’s skate park, tennis courts and playground re-opened in Dec. 2022, the pool and building are still inoperable 16 months later.

However, there is light at the end of the tunnel for the two popular community spaces after the city posted a short video and photos of the pool being worked on.

The pool restoration work began in December, including draining the standing water and pressure washing the entire surface to determine the damage done by river water, Oviedo Recreation and Parks Director Paul Belden said. Once inspected, they resurfaced the pool, re-grouted the tiles, flushed the recirculation lines, replaced the sand filter media and finally refilled the pool. 

The next steps include balancing the chemicals and doing any remaining follow-up maintenance, though that is not the final hurdle. The pool’s five heaters still need to be assessed and either repaired or replaced.

The overall project has cost $102,260, though that does not include the water heater work. Estimates for the heaters will be available following the inspections, Belden said.

Riverside Pool’s closure meant shifting a lot of city scheduling. In addition to lap swimming, the facility is used for swim lessons and the local swim and water polo teams. The city’s swim lesson program was moved to the Oviedo Aquatic Center following the storm. However, there may be splashing at Riverside again soon.

“We’re aiming for springtime,” Belden said. “That’s our goal.

”We’re trying to reopen it for the warmer months,” he said. “The biggest thing that we’re waiting for are these heaters. We get these heaters up and running, I think we’ll be that much closer to letting people in the pool.”

Community Center update

The closure of the Riverside Community Center meant the much-anticipated senior center, which was set to open just days after the storm, on Oct. 1, 2022, has remained closed.

The storm flooded the center with 25 inches of water, destroying equipment, wall partitions and anything else that sat below the waterline.

The city has already gone through the bidding process for the work on the building’s interior, and the repair contract is expected to be awarded at the Feb. 5 City Council meeting, Belden said. Once the purchase order is issued, a more definite time frame for the work will be available. Once the work is completed, however, the senior center will finally have its grand opening.

”There have been discussions on doing some sort of a grand opening, per sè,” Belden said. “Some sort of special event opening the senior center officially, since we never had that opportunity right before the hurricane.”