AURORA | In a manner of speaking, Overland High School is no longer landlocked.
For 48 years, swimmers and divers from the school had no water to call their own on campus and had to practice and compete in City of Aurora-run facilities a block away at Utah Park.
Thanks to a major bond passed by voters in 2024, that has all changed. Officials from Cherry Creek Schools, Overland and Aurora were onhand Friday morning to cut the ceremonial ribbon on the new facility. It marked the official completion of the 35,000-square-foot facility, which broke ground in May of 2025.
Overland athletic director Evan Henderson has watched the entire project come to fruition and had time to appreciate the magnitude of it.
“It’s exciting because it offers our students something we have not had the ability to have before,” Henderson said. “Not only our athletes, but all of our students. …Being familiar with water is incredibly important and if we can teach kids and understand how to be safe in water, that’s huge.”
The pool holds 417,000 gallons of water and has eight lanes available for competition. The facility also includes lockerrooms, two rooms for health classes plus team rooms and public restrooms that can be used by spectators at outside athletic fields.
Overland had been the only district high school without its own swimming pool and was the only other large school in the Aurora area other than Vista PEAK Prep (Aurora Public Schools’ newest high school) without an on campus facility.
The school’s swim teams had used Utah Park, but that presented many challenges, including getting there in inclement weather as well as sharing the facility with the general public and with little room for spectators.
The Utah Park facility closed in 2025 to fix water leaks, replace pipes and repair structural problems — which forced Overland’s team to go elsewhere to practice and to swim all meets at other schools — and didn’t reopen until April of this year.
“It’s one big thing we don’t have to worry about,” Henderson said. “Last year was a nightmare because the boys and girls had to go to Aurora Central to practice and many of them don’t drive, so it was hard to get them there. It’s nice to have something on campus where we as a community can come to one place.
“I cannot tell you how much kids just seeing this has garnered interest in swimming.”
According to Henderson, the first official event in the pool will be the opening day of girls swim practice, which is allowed on Nov. 9 by the Colorado High School Activities Association.
Several members of the Overland girls swim team and coach Chloe Narro — and some of the boys, who compete in the spring — were onhand. Boys swim coach Michael Pineda was out of town on a previously scheduled trip and missed the ceremony, which included an appearance by Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman along with those instrumental in the planning and execution of the project.
“While we have appreciated our partnership with the city of Aurora, this aquatic center is far more than a building for us,” Overland principal Sybil Booker told the assembled crowd. “It represents opportunity for our students. Right here, our ‘Blazers will be learning how to swim, working on certifications and lifeguarding and building skills that one day could lead to perhaps saving their lives or someone else’s.”
Overland’s well-known marching band, mascot and cheerleaders were also part of the festivities, which included speeches by Booker, Dr. Jennifer Perry, Cherry Creek School District Interim Superintendent, Cherry Creek School board member John-Claude Futrell (an Overland alum in the Class of 1994) along with student athletes Kayden Gutierrez-Romero and Rylan Pineda.
Gutierrez-Romero — a senior who qualified for the Class 5A girls state swim meet in diving last season — noted how much the facility will make a difference.
“As a diver, having a pool at our school will completely change the experience for students like me,” she said. “But this is not just about me or the swimmers. There could be students in our school who might love to swim or dive and this pool will give them that opportunity.
“Thank you for the opportunity to give our students a pool, give our athletes a place to grow and give our school something we can all be proud of.”
The aquatic center — built by Saunders Construction and designed by DLR Group — is part of massive ongoing work around the Cherry Creek School District made possible by the $950,000,000 bond approved by voters (Ballot Measure 4B) in 2024.
Bond money for schools is earmarked for building, infrastructure and safety as opposed to a mill, which funds operational needs like teacher and staff salaries, supplies, utilities and daily programs.
The project cost an estimated $75 million.
“Thank you to the voters who supported this bond and continue to invest in our schools and most importantly in our students,” Futrell said. “This pool brings the next generation of Trailblazers into a new era.”
Added Perry: “We are building and improving facilities to give students more of an opportunity to learn, to compete, to explore their interests and to prepare for what comes next. So thank you to our voters…the 2024 bond will make possible some incredible things.”
Overland alumni, current students and others got the opportunity to make the “first splash” into the pool.
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@sentinelcolorado.com. Twitter/X: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports
Utah Pool built and opened in 1974 has served as Overland HS’s home pool since 1978? As in always? And it’s a whole block away? Which is kind of an exaggeration because the football field, tennis courts and baseball diamond… indeed the whole Utah Park is basically something on which OHS and Prarie MS sit. Nor is Utah Pool not regularly updated, as it recently was, or in any way an inadequate facility as it has served the high school. This appears to be a waste of tax dollars and, for me as a taxpayer being asked it seems at every election (the most recent of which when the grossly inflated property value of my home two evaluations ago, where in the last evaluation my taxes might have decreased but for yet another mil levy bump by Cherry Creek Schools) to give more money “for education” to CCSD, deeply concerning. And the reason I keep voting down such money grabs in an increasingly deteriorating qulality of education of its students.
What a shame that the Swimming Coaches were not included in the ceremony.