Overland High School in Aurora cut the ribbon Friday on a brand-new 35,000-square-foot swimming pool complex, giving the school’s swim teams a place to compete at home for the first time in its 48-year history. Cherry Creek School District Interim Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Perry performed the ribbon-cutting honors, with Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman also on hand for the ceremony, which included performances from the Overland marching band, mascot, and cheerleaders.
The new natatorium holds 417,000 gallons of water across an eight-lane, 25-yard competition pool with a diving well, according to Sentinel Colorado. The facility, designed by DLR Group and built by Saunders Construction, also includes spectator seating for more than 300 people, locker rooms, a team room, two classrooms for health classes, and public restrooms serving spectators at the outdoor fields, per the builder’s project details.
Overland was the only high school in the Cherry Creek School District without its own pool, a gap that stretched back to the school’s 1978 opening. For nearly five decades, Overland swimmers and divers practiced and competed at nearby Utah Park facilities instead, the report notes.
A Municipal Park Filled the Gap for Decades
Utah Park, located roughly 0.3 miles from the Overland and Prairie Middle School campus, has long served as the de facto home base for Overland aquatics, according to a Zillow listing that maps the site’s proximity to the school. That relationship dates back decades and extended beyond swimming — in 2019, Utah Park’s tennis courts were dedicated to the memory of Woodie Smith, who coached Overland student-athletes at the park for more than thirty years, as reported by Sentinel Colorado…