Looking toward the future of Central Winds Park 

The 103-acre Central Winds Park complex serves as a hub for much of Winter Springs, offering amenities such as pickleball and tennis courts, a dog park and a fishing trail, as well as hosting popular events such as Hometown Harvest and the Highland Games. 

Now, the city of Winter Springs is looking toward the future of its popular park and how it can be further developed to meet the needs of its growing community. 

The Central Winds Park Master Plan Update is the city’s plan to meet those future needs, intended to enhance the site to better serve and accommodate a variety of park users and serve as a guiding point for the park’s development in coming years. 

“This master plan is a forward-looking document regarding the future of Central Winds Park,” Winter Springs spokesman Mathew Reeser said in an email to OCN. “While it is expected to offer suggestions on ideas for future improvements, the master plan is merely a guide regarding the park’s future.”

In a presentation to the city commission during its Dec. 9 meeting, Kristin Caborn, director of park systems and public spaces for GAI Consultants Inc., the consulting group contracted by the city to develop the park’s plan, said the master plan is based on both current site usage and the desires of users for the future of the site.

“This is taking the input that we heard from the public, working with staff, as well as the input that we got at the parks and recreation advisory committee meeting, and coming up with a final plan,” Caborn said. “And then, finally, next steps. We’re nearing the end of the process, it’s a really exciting time.”

Public input has played an integral role in the planning process, with city consultants using the Hometown Harvest Festival held on Oct. 26 as an opportunity to gather feedback on the future of the park from residents, in addition to collecting information from weekly meetings with city staff to make planning decisions. 

“We made a lot of design to fit decisions, focusing on the balance between environmental sustainability, improving the stormwater, improving the social sustainability and the multi users,” Caborn said. “So highlighting what we can use for all different generations, current residents of Winter Springs as well as into the future.” 

The consulting group has divided the planning process into three task phases, with the first two tasks focused on the foundation of the park site and conducting research before moving into the public input section. 

“We’re at the beginning of task three, which is the final vision,” Caborn said. “We are targeting to end the project in February. That commission [meeting] date is a little up in the air, but if everything stays on track, we should be finished by about then.”

Currently, the commission’s meeting date during which the final plan will be presented is set for February 24, pending any schedule changes. 

Landscape architect and park system planner for GAI Consultants, Andrea Penuela, told the commission during the Dec. 9 presentation that the group has identified both areas of improvement as well as pre-existing strengths of the park site in their plan. 

Current strengths of the park include details like the existing tree canopies, park events and the tournament and practice sports fields, Penuela said. 

“We want to make sure that the strengths keep on being strengths and get played up,” Penuela said. “The vibrancy of the park is really something that makes it great. You could go there on nearly any evening and on the weekends and the park is packed, and that’s great to see.”

But despite its popularity and strengths, the park still has a number of “weaknesses” that Penuela said have come up through the group’s research and preparation as well through public input. 

“One of the things that we heard about the most and that we saw inside was the confusing navigation when you first get into the park,” Penuela said. “There is so much to do in that park, and you may or may not be aware that there is as much to do there because it’s hard to navigate. We actually saw that on the site, we had people come up to ask us where certain amenities were.”

Other identified weaknesses include a lack of ADA access and pedestrian circulation in some park areas, limited parking availability and water drainage concerns throughout the site. 

According to the most recent presentation, existing drainage issues have been reported in certain parts of the park such as the southern fields and pavilion area. Draining rainwater from the parking lot and adjacent roadways have contributed to the issue despite the park’s ongoing drainage management, another area of planned improvement. 

Prior to Dec. 9, the plan was also presented to the city’s parks and recreation advisory committee during its Nov. 6 meeting for review. Some of the key points heard then from the advisory committee and public engagement included increasing users’ access to nature, creating centralized gathering places in main park areas and increasing ADA access through handicapped parking and sidewalk connections. 

Some of the other proposed features in the plan’s most current iteration include: 

• Adding a shaded observation deck overlooking the lake on the western edge of the park.
• Developing an event venue with associated parking that could be used for community events, weddings, and other gatherings.
• Expanding the number of picnic pavilions in the passive park area.
• Installing a 2,000-foot boardwalk along Lake Jesup as an opportunity to provide access to the water’s edge and views of the wetlands and natural areas. 
• Replacing the park’s currently outdated playground with a new, “destination” style design.

Caborn said the plan’s final submittal in February will include the kind of “nitty gritty” information that answers in more detail how the plan may be executed. 

And though that plan may very well improve a variety of site features, Central Winds Park as it stands now remains as a favorite amongst many community members.  

“It’s really a park that’s raised by the community,” Penuela said. 

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