Building the First: How You Can Help Make It Happen
- DCAF Team
- Jun 23
- 4 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
We won't sugarcoat it. Build the South Metro's First 50-Meter Pool and Aquatic Center is a big, ambitious, expensive undertaking. There is no groundbreaking date. There is no ribbon cutting on the calendar. What there is right now is a community that has waited long enough — and a foundation working to turn that frustration into something real.
This is where we are. And here is how you can help.
Where We Are Right Now
The Douglas County Aquatics Foundation is in the early stages of this effort. We have identified a nearly 18-acre parcel on Pine Drive in Parker as a potential site. We are building community support, engaging local officials, and laying the organizational groundwork needed to pursue funding through grants, donations, and a potential future ballot measure.
The immediate goals are straightforward:
Establish the dedicated nonprofit entity for this project. Raise funds for architectural concept drawings to present to the Town of Parker and Douglas County. Demonstrate community demand through a growing list of supporters from across the south metro.
None of those things require a construction crew. All of them require people.
Why Community Support Matters Right Now
Before any grant committee writes a check, before any city council votes on a partnership, before any ballot measure goes to voters — decision makers want to see proof that the community is behind this.
A list of 500 supporters from across Douglas County, Arapahoe County, and the surrounding south metro is worth more in a grant application right now than $500 in donations. It proves the demand is real. It shows that this isn't one swim club asking for a pool — it's a regional community that has been underserved for years and is ready to invest in a solution.
Sign up at DouglasCountyAquaticsFoundation.org. Fill out the form. Tell us your ZIP code and how you are connected to aquatics. That data becomes evidence.
What the Facility Could Look Like
Based on comparable Colorado facilities — specifically the Arvada Aquatics Center, which opened in 2024 at $41 million — a Parker facility would likely include a 50-meter competition pool with 10 long-course lanes and a moveable bulkhead that converts to 22 cross-course 25-yard practice lanes during short course season. That lane capacity alone could accommodate large club practices and multiple teams simultaneously — eliminating the need for clubs like Aces to split across four separate locations. The facility would also include a separate diving well with springboards and competition platforms, a warm-water instructional pool for lessons and therapy programming, mezzanine spectator seating for 800 or more, and modern locker rooms and support facilities.
The Pine Drive site in Parker, at nearly 18 acres, has sufficient space for the full facility footprint — including room to accommodate future expansion such as an ice sheet addition in a later phase.
The Funding Path
Facilities like this are not built by one donor or one source. The Arvada Aquatics Center was funded through an Intergovernmental Agreement splitting costs between the City of Arvada, Jeffco Public Schools, and the Apex Park and Recreation District. That is the model DCAF is working toward — a partnership between the Town of Parker, Douglas County School District, and a parks or recreation authority, supplemented by grants, private donations, and community fundraising.
GOCO's Regional Partnerships Initiative has $50 million available from 2025 to 2030 for exactly this type of multi-county regional recreation infrastructure project. USA Swimming Foundation, the Colorado Health Foundation, El Pomar, and federal community facilities grants are all on the target list.
The path exists. Building it takes time, coalition, and demonstrated community support.
How to Help Today
There are three things you can do right now that directly advance this project:
Sign up - Add your name at DouglasCountyAquaticsFoundation.org. Every supporter from every south metro ZIP code strengthens the case we bring to officials and grant committees.
Donate - Early contributions fund the nonprofit formation costs and architectural concept drawings needed for our first city and county presentations. Every dollar at this stage has outsized impact.
Share - Post the map. Share this blog. Tell your swim family, your neighbors, your coworkers. The south metro has over 1 million residents — the more of them who know this project exists, the stronger our coalition becomes.
Share this map. Every pin tells the story — four 50-meter pools clustered north and west of Denver, and one proposed site alone in the south. This is why Douglas County needs DCAF.
The Long Game
We are not going to promise you a pool is coming next year. What we will promise is that every supporter who signs up, every donor who contributes, and every family who shares this story moves the needle. Facilities like this get built because communities decide they are worth building — and then do the unglamorous work of proving it, year after year, until the shovels go in the ground.
The south Denver metro has never had a 50-meter competition pool.
We are working to build the first one.
