Crews are tiling the new indoor pool at Senter Park in South Irving, and the city says the long-awaited aquatic and recreation center is now about 75% complete, with both indoor and outdoor water slides taking shape on site. City Manager Chris Hillman and a group of assistant city managers toured the future facility this week, part of a construction push that has quietly transformed the aging park into one of Irving's biggest recreation projects.
The tour and construction update were shared in a video posted to Facebook by the City of Irving, Texas – City Hall, which described the site as “taking shape” with tile installation underway around the new indoor pool and work continuing on both the indoor and outdoor water slides. The redevelopment carries an estimated project budget of $23 million and adds 27,837 square feet of new space, including 14,545 square feet of indoor aquatic space, according to the City of Irving. Once finished, the complex will total 62,061 square feet.
Replacing a 70-Year-Old Pool
The project is replacing the original outdoor Senter Park Pool, which was built in 1954 and was 70 years old at the start of its redevelopment — making it one of Irving's oldest public aquatic facilities alongside Lively Pool, built in 1959, and Lee Park Pool, built in 1962, as reported by CBS News Texas. Rather than rebuild another seasonal outdoor pool, the city opted to convert Senter Park into a year-round indoor and outdoor complex. The design includes a leisure pool, a wading pool with interactive play structures, a lazy river, a zip line, lap lanes, and an indoor/outdoor water slide, per specifications from Steele & Freeman, Inc., the project's construction manager.
Getting to this point took more than two years of municipal groundwork. Irving's City Council awarded a $2,251,472 architectural design contract for the facility to Brinkley Sargent Wiginton Architects in February 2024, then selected Steele & Freeman as Construction Manager at Risk the following month. City leaders broke ground on the new indoor aquatic center during a ceremony on March 10, 2025, setting the formal construction timeline in motion.
Temporary Closure and Site Changes
Senter Park Recreation Center closed on June 1, to accommodate the final phases of construction, with most public programs temporarily relocated to Georgia Farrow Recreation Center. Beyond the aquatic building itself, the project's master site plan also required realigning the facility's parking lots and relocating existing tennis courts to make room for the expanded footprint. The city says the aquatic and recreation center is now planned to open in November, and residents can track progress at irving.net/playirving.
Part of a Citywide $92 Million Overhaul
Senter Park is one piece of a much larger initiative called “Let's Play Irving: Elevating Aquatics and Recreation,” a $92 million citywide program approved by the City Council in 2023 and funded largely through voter-approved municipal bonds, according to CBS News Texas. As part of that same overhaul, Irving opened the rebuilt outdoor Lee Aquatic Park in May 2025 and is building a 127,000-square-foot multigenerational recreation and aquatics center at Mustang Park, slated to open in 2027.
The Irving Parks and Recreation Department oversees a municipal system spanning more than 2,000 acres of parkland, over 80 parks, more than 40 playgrounds, six recreation centers, and four aquatic facilities. With Senter Park nearing completion and Mustang Park still under construction, South Irving residents are watching two major recreation investments rise within the same few years — a shift city officials frame as modernizing decades-old infrastructure for year-round use rather than just a few months each summer.
