“It looks like the pagoda on Lake Eola is finally being repaired. Do you have any information?”
– BUNGALOWER READER
The pagoda is actually called The Chinese Ting, and it was a gift from Orlando’s sister city in China, Guilin. It was gifted to the city roughly 30 years ago by a company out of Shanghai that used bamboo ladders and tools to assemble it. It was built in Shanghai, disassembled, and then shipped to Orlando and reassembled by the Shanghai Construction Arts and Crafts Corporation.
It was paid for by philanthropist, scientist, and businessman Dr. Nelson Ying, director of The China Group Incorporated, who helped to found the Dr. Nelson Ying Science Competition at the Orlando Science Center in 1999.
It was damaged by a storm back in 2017 when a massive thousand-pound branch fell onto it from a nearby tree. While the deck was repaired quickly at the time, it’s taken longer to work with insurance companies and crews to work on the roof.
Scaffolding is currently in place and according to the Mayor’s office, construction work is expected to be complete in roughly two or three weeks. Park-goers are asked to give plenty of space for crews to do their work and stand back, out of harm’s way.
Do you have something you want us to look into for you? Send your question to [email protected] and we’ll check it out!