If you have driven past Reservoir Park this year, you have seen a full pool on one side of Brittain Road and a fenced-off dirt lot on the other, and you have probably assumed they are the same project running at two different speeds. They are not. Goodyear Heights currently has three separate things happening to its namesake reservoir, run by three different teams, on three different timelines, and only one of them involves anything actually being torn down for good.
That confusion is understandable. For decades, "the reservoir" meant one thing: the underground tank, the shelter house next to it, and the water tower looming over both. Now that the city has split the site into a finished pool, an active construction zone, and a landmark under a preservation study, keeping track of what's done and what's still years out has become its own small neighborhood skill.
Two very different water stories share one address
The mix-up starts with vocabulary. Residents and even some meeting notes use "the reservoir project" to describe everything happening at 399 Brittain Road, but the city is managing two structurally unrelated pieces of infrastructure there. One is the community center and outdoor pool that sits above ground and serves as a gathering space. The other is the 20-million-gallon underground tank that has quietly supplied Akron's drinking water since 1913. They share a name and a park, not a construction schedule.
Here's how the three actually break down as of this September:
- Reservoir Park Community Center and Pool – Finished. The renovated community center opened for programming in November 2025, and the pool reopened for the 2026 season as part of the city's standard June pool schedule. This project is done and in active use.
- The underground drinking-water reservoir – Still under construction. Demolition of the 112-year-old tank began in December 2025, and by the April 21, 2026 Ward 10 meeting, crews had finished demolition and moved on to building the sub-base, hauling in compacted dirt in 8-inch lifts. The rebuild is expected to run through 2028.
- The water tower and pump station – Neither finished nor being demolished. The city commissioned a feasibility study to preserve and possibly repurpose these two structures, and no removal is currently planned.
Treating those as one timeline is where residents get tripped up. The visible construction site does not mean the neighborhood's whole water story is stalled. Most of it already wrapped up last year.
The part that's actually finished
The pool and community center renovation was funded largely through American Rescue Plan Act dollars, with the city citing roughly $10 million for the combined pool and building work. What residents get for it: a 15-foot slide, a shallow water play area, 25-meter lap lanes, a climbing wall, an updated bathhouse, and shaded seating around the pool deck. Inside the community center, the 1990s addition was torn down and replaced with roughly 4,800 square feet of new space, including a multi-purpose room, an art room, a game room, and a kitchen, while the original 1933 shelter house structure was kept and its restrooms updated.
Longtime residents who showed up for the October 2025 reopening were the ones with the clearest read on what changed. Gary Phillips, who grew up in the neighborhood, remembered the old monkey bars and the metal slides that used to burn your legs on a hot day. His wife Mary was more interested in what the new pool would let her do that the old one never could: swim actual laps, now that there are dedicated lanes for it, so she can eventually bring her grandkids too. That kind of before-and-after is the clearest evidence the finished half of this story is genuinely finished, not a soft opening ahead of more construction.
The part that's still two years out
The underground reservoir is a different animal entirely, both in scope and in what it means for the neighborhood day to day. The tank that's being replaced held 20 million gallons and had served the city since 1913. The new one will hold 12.5 million gallons, a smaller figure on paper, but engineers have noted it is being built at a higher elevation, which changes how it interacts with the rest of Akron's water system. Signal Akron's coverage of the demolition's start captured the more colorful detail: during the earliest phase of work, the old roof reportedly collapsed within three hours of crews starting, a reminder of just how old the structure actually was.
The rebuild itself is a slow, physical process. Ray Bertolini Trucking, based in Copley, has been hauling fill dirt to the site in 8-inch lifts, each one compacted before the next goes down. At the April 21, 2026 Ward 10 meeting, city engineer Bill Marchand told residents that heavy spring rain had slowed the compaction work, since wet soil doesn't pack the way dry soil does, and that the sub-base alone would take another four to six weeks to complete. The full rebuild is projected to wrap by 2028, which means the fenced lot at Brittain and Newton is a fixture of the neighborhood for at least another year or two, not a temporary detour.
The landmark that was never actually leaving
The green water tower that rises above the park, the one that shows up in neighborhood murals and market signage, is often assumed to be next on the demolition list simply because it sits so close to the construction. It isn't. The city set aside a separate $50,000 contract with MKSK Studios, a Columbus engineering firm, specifically to study whether the tower and its adjacent pump house can be preserved and reused rather than torn down.
Ward 10 Councilmember Sharon Connor and Council Vice President Jeff Fusco have pushed for the pump station to become a small educational space that teaches Akron's water history, tracing how drinking water travels from Lake Rockwell to the reservoir to household faucets. During a site visit ahead of the study, crews had already added new concrete supports to the tower's four legs along with 15-foot and 30-foot observation platforms, both meant to stabilize the structure and give visitors an actual view of the neighborhood from up top, according to Signal Akron's reporting on the preservation effort. The tower isn't a demolition candidate. It's a landmark the city is actively trying to keep and put to new use, which is the opposite of what the construction next door might suggest.
That distinction matters because the tower already functions as neighborhood shorthand. It appears in the "Hope in the Heights" mural on the side of Wingfoot Church, and it lends its name to the Water Tower Marketplace, the seasonal evening market held at Triangle Park.
What's actually open right now
Setting the construction confusion aside, this stretch of Goodyear Heights has more going on socially than it has in years. A short list of what's currently drawing people out:
- Cafe Rewind, tucked into the former post office building, pairs an arcade with a genuinely ambitious food menu, from ramen bowls named things like the Moon Beam and the Ninja Girl to a Side Quest Salad and a brisket grilled cheese. It's co-owned by David Schweyer, who also runs the neighborhood's other long-running gathering spot.
- The Linda Theatre, open since 1948 and also under Schweyer's ownership, remains the kind of nostalgia anchor the neighborhood has held onto through every other change around it.
- Triangle Park hosts the seasonal Water Tower Marketplace, an evening market with live music, and displays the community-refreshed mural that ties the tower's silhouette to the neighborhood's identity.
- The Urban Honky-Tonk Saloon, which had its grand opening in April 2026 on Brooklands Avenue, is Akron's newest country bar and the subject of some real debate at Ward 10 meetings, where Connor raised concerns about a dance venue opening in a residential pocket heading into summer.
None of that requires waiting for the reservoir rebuild to finish. The pool is already open, the tower is staying put, and the neighborhood's newest café and its oldest theater are both a short walk from the construction fence that's been getting all the attention.
If you're weighing what a neighborhood like this actually feels like day to day, beyond the headlines about construction and openings, that's exactly the kind of on-the-ground read the Bartlebaugh Team specializes in. Let's Connect if you'd like to talk through what's happening in Goodyear Heights or any other corner of the Akron area.
