YMCA Aquatic Center

The YMCA Aquatic Center located in Orlando, Florida is one of the largest indoor competitive swimming facilities in the southeastern USA with a 50 meter by 25 yard natatorium, a separate 25 meter by 25 yard diving well and a 25 yard teaching pool.

It features a first of its kind hydraulically retractable roof. The facility also incorporates a workout/ wellness center, martial arts center, and racquetball courts.

Considered a very fast pool it has been the site of many national and international swimming competitions. Numerous world and American records have been set over the years at the facility by Pablo Morales, Janet Evans, Matt Biondi, Tom Jager, Dara Torres and others.

Formerly known as the Justus Aquatic Center it opened January 1985 as a business venture combining a hotel with a sporting venue. It was the first aquatic, fitness and hotel complex, of its kind. Financial problems plagued the center from the beginning. In 1988, there was a brief closure of the facility as it was taken in receivership by the Great Western Bank. The facility was renamed the Orlando International Aquatic and Fitness Center. Citing an operating loss of $600,000 a year and the impossibility of running an aquatics facility of that size in the black, the bank closed the center in January 1992. The center was to be destroyed in order to make a larger parking lot.

A local hotelier, Harris Rosen, fought the closure, by forming an organization called Friends of the Aquatic Center with several aquatics activists such as Dr. Lucky Meisenheimer, Scott Henderson, Julie Sundstrom and others. A six-month community battle ensued in the attempt to reopen the center. Rallies and protest marches were held and congressional representatives Jim Bacchus and Bill McCollum became involved.

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