In March, a longtime Riverside South resident named Sandra Stone stood in the gymnasium at Rideauview Community Centre and looked at renderings for a new building a few blocks from her own front door. She had worked for the city on that gym's original design decades earlier. Her kids grew up playing in its music room. Now she was back, looking at plans for the next version of that same idea, for a new generation of kids who haven't been born yet.
"It's really nice to see how this has evolved," Stone told CBC News at the March 24 public information session.
That sentence captures something residents here already sense but haven't seen laid out plainly: Riverside South is in the middle of a real, multi-project buildout, but the projects are not all at the same point in that process. One has crews on site right now. Two are still working through design feedback with no construction date attached. If you've seen headlines about "a new rec complex" or "a new library" landing in the neighborhood and assumed it's close, the timeline is more complicated, and more interesting, than that.
The One With Dirt Actually Moving: Rhythm Park
Rhythm Park, at 820 Chorus Drive, is the project furthest along. It sits on a lot with frontage on three streets, Chorus Drive, Kenny Gordon Avenue and Rhythm Way, and the city's Engage Ottawa page for the project lays out a straightforward build: two rectangular sports fields, a multi-use court, a splash pad, junior and senior play structures, a sand play area, and swings that include an accessible harness swing. Residents who took part in the design survey landed on the play structure option labeled "B," and that concept is now being finalized into detailed drawings.
Construction is expected to run from May 2026 through the fall. That sounds like a park you could use by winter. It isn't quite that simple. The same city page notes that the sports fields will need additional time after construction wraps for the turf to establish before anyone can actually play on them. A completed construction schedule and a usable soccer pitch are two different milestones, and for Rhythm Park they're separated by at least one growing season. If you're picturing your kid's league using this field in 2026, plan on 2027 instead.
The Two Still on the Drawing Board
The bigger, more visible projects in the neighborhood haven't broken ground, and the city has been explicit about why: they're still in the planning stage.
The Riverside South Community Centre, Library and District Park is planned for 250 Town Square Place, near Limebank Station. The design calls for a 1,900-square-metre community centre with a gymnasium, fitness studio and meeting rooms, plus a 1,400-square-metre Ottawa Public Library branch, wrapped in a district park with sport courts, sport fields, a skateboard park, a splash pad, a playground and walking paths. The public information session where Sandra Stone spoke happened at Rideauview Community Centre, 4310 Shoreline Drive, on March 24, 2026. The related survey ran from March 14 to April 14, 2026, and drew more than 400 responses, which the city says will help shape the final design.
A few kilometres away, the Southeast Ottawa Recreation Complex is planned for 1863 Earl Armstrong Road, near Bowesville Station on Line 2. This is the larger of the two: a 15,000-square-metre facility with an indoor pool, two ice pads, a gymnasium, a fitness studio, an indoor walking track, more outdoor sport fields, and roughly 500 parking spaces, according to reporting on the project. A second public session was held June 15, 2026, at St. Jerome School's gymnasium on Spratt Road.
Both projects are described by the city, as of this writing, as being in the planning stage, with input still being incorporated into design work. Neither has a published construction start date. That's the gap worth sitting with: the two facilities that will change daily life here the most, a library branch and a full recreation complex with a pool and two rinks, are still on paper, while the smallest of the three projects is the one with equipment on site.
Here's how the three stack up side by side:
| Project | Address | Current Stage | What's Coming |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rhythm Park | 820 Chorus Drive | Under construction, May–Fall 2026 | Two sports fields, splash pad, multi-use court, play structures |
| Riverside South Community Centre & Library | 250 Town Square Place, near Limebank Station | Planning, survey closed April 14, 2026 | Gymnasium, fitness studio, OPL branch, district park with skate park and splash pad |
| Southeast Ottawa Recreation Complex | 1863 Earl Armstrong Road, near Bowesville Station | Planning, info session held June 15, 2026 | Indoor pool, two ice pads, walking track, outdoor fields, roughly 500 parking spaces |
Where to Go This Summer While You Wait
None of this means the neighborhood is short on places to cool off right now. Diamond Jubilee Park already has a splash pad, a skate park and a fenced off-leash dog area, and it's been the default gathering spot for families in Riverside South and neighboring Findlay Creek for exactly this reason. If you're weighing whether to wait for Rhythm Park's splash pad next year or just head out this weekend, Diamond Jubilee Park is the answer for now.
What This Actually Means If You Live Here
The pattern worth remembering is that construction visibility and project scale move in opposite directions right now. The project you can watch being built, Rhythm Park, is the smallest of the three. The projects that will do the most to change how Riverside South functions day to day, a library within walking distance of Limebank Station and a full aquatic and ice facility off Earl Armstrong Road, are still working through the part of the process where the city collects your feedback and folds it into drawings. That's not a delay so much as the normal order of things for public facilities this size. It just means the headline you may have read about a "new rec complex coming to Riverside South" describes a project years, not months, from a ribbon cutting.
If you want to track this yourself rather than wait for the next news cycle, the Engage Ottawa page for the Southeast Ottawa Recreation Complex lets you subscribe for project updates directly, which is a faster read on real progress than secondhand coverage.
Growth like this rarely stays contained to parks and libraries. New civic investment tends to show up in how a neighborhood is talked about long before it shows up in a completed building, and that has a way of following through to property values over time. The Zak Green Team keeps close track of projects like these across Ottawa's growing communities, because understanding what's actually happening on the ground, not just what's been announced, is part of giving clients an honest read on where a neighborhood is headed. If you're curious what the pace of change in Riverside South means for your own home's position in the market, request a personalized market valuation and we'll walk you through it.
