Apopka ready to add splash pad

Apopka is preparing to get soaking wet.

The City Council this week unanimously approved a longawaited $543,000 splash pad, which has been discussed since at least 2014. The projected construction schedule could have the water playground at Kit Land Nelson Park open by August before summer break ends and Apopka kids go back to school.

More than a dozen other communities in Central Florida — many much smaller than Apopka, Orange County’s second-mostpopulous city — boast municipal pools, splash pads or both. Apopka didn’t have either.

A splash pad “is something that Apopka residents have been asking for for a long time,” said Apopka Mayor Joe Kilsheimer, who is running for re-election in Tuesday’s election against Orange County Commissioner Bryan Nelson. “We feel this is a quality-of-life thing.”

Nelson said the mayor has exaggerated the importance of the water playground as a development magnet.

“He’s in full campaign mode,” Nelson said.

The city also has plans to further boost the profile of Kit Land Nelson Park, the 5-acre green space where the city stages the annual Apopka Art & Foliage Festival, monthly food truck nights and holiday lights every winter. The city recently received a $120,000 grant from the state Department of Environmental Protection to add recreational trails and parking spots nearby. A separate grant is intended to build a new playground there.

The splash pad will be a couple of bocks from the site of the former Florida Hospital Apopka, now slated for redevelopment. Adventist Health built a new $203-million, seven-story hospital on the far west side of the city near State Road 429.

Though high on residents’ wish lists and included in the 2016-17 budget, the water playground has had a hard time getting its figurative feet wet.

No vendors bid to build the pad when the city first sought proposals for the project in early 2017. The second time around, last July, a losing bidder threatened to file a protest because City Council chose a bid that was turned in late and exceeded

So the city sought bids a third time.

Orlando-based Freeport Fountains, which has performed work for the city of Celebration, Baldwin Park, Gaylord Palms and former President Bill Clinton’s library, won the job.

Building specifications call for 4,800 square feet of wet space — an area bigger than a basketball court — with 42 water-soaking spray jets and other play features, including a giant mushroom-shaped shower called “Fun-Guy.”

Construction will begin in April but pause April 28-29 for the foliage festival. the city’s cost parameters.