Santa Clara’s George F. Haines International Swim Center has been closed for more than a year, leaving the city’s aquatics community and legacy foundering.
The city closed the swim center in January 2024, citing structural safety issues after years of neglect. The renovations are so extensive that the complex needs to be completely overhauled, city spokesperson Janine de la Vega said. The full revamp has yet to begin, but until then, the city has set aside $2 million for repairs to temporarily reopen with a limited 200-person capacity. Those repairs began Jan. 13.
The city will have about $45 million from recently passed Measure I, an infrastructure bond, to apply toward the aquatic facilities, including the swim center’s rebuild. But De la Vega said it’s not uncommon for projects of this scale to exceed that cost. The initial work has already unearthed previously unknown structural problems, such as rebar damage, she said. While the city has enough contingency funds to cover the extra repairs, it will likely delay the opening date, originally slated for April.
“It’s an unexpected expected. Honestly, I’m just surprised that the pool has not collapsed,” Santa Clara Swim Club President Amanda Pease told San José Spotlight.
For more than a year, the 500-person swim team has been spread out across seven different pools, which has been a huge financial strain, Pease said. Pool costs this year have been about 30 times more expensive than what the team previously paid when hosting most of its practices at the swim center.
The Santa Clara Diving Club also used to practice at the swim center. Head Coach Todd Spohn said there are no accessible regulation-sized dive towers in the South Bay, so the team drives to Berkeley once a week for practice. On other days, the team practices at Peterson Middle School, but the school’s pool temperature is too low for divers to stay warm between dives and the team hasn’t been able to arrange a hot tub.
Despite the hardships from relocations and a lack of proper equipment, Spohn said the diving club had one of its best seasons last year, placing 10th in the junior national championships. Three divers also placed in the top 5 of their age groups. Similarly, Pease said two swimmers from the club qualified for the Olympic trials.
The swim center was a state-of-the-art facility when it opened in the 1960s. Dozens of future Olympians, including nine-time Olympic gold medalist Mark Spitz and two-time gold medalist Donna de Varona, trained with the swim club at the height of their careers. The Santa Clara Diving Club and Santa Clara Artistic Swimming, formerly known as the Santa Clara Aquamaids, also regularly produce nationally recognized athletes. The swim club boasts 51 Olympic gold medals.
Dozens of Santa Clara residents also used to frequent the swim center during recreational time. Tonia Trombetta swam at the center for about 50 years before its closure. She said the pool had been in disrepair long before it closed in 2024, and that the locker rooms were so dirty that swimmers sometimes brought cleaning supplies from home.
“It was getting to be an embarrassment when there would be international meets and there would be no hot water,” Trombetta told San José Spotlight.
Recreational lap swim times has been moved to other community pools, including the ones at Mary Gomez Park and the senior center, which Trombetta said has crowded the lap swim times.
The three aquatics clubs that used to use the swim center — the swim club, diving club and Santa Clara Artistic Swimming — have formed a coalition called the Santa Clara Aquatics Foundation. Foundation President Vikas Gupta said the city’s swim center is important beyond athletic competition — it’s also a place where people learn to swim.
“When you read about somebody drowning in their backyard pool, you think these things happen to other people, until you’re one of those people,” Gupta told San José Spotlight.
He said the swim center could benefit the city during the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. Olympic athletes will often travel weeks before the Olympics to train at nearby facilities. However, it’s unlikely the swim center’s renovations will be done by then.
Still, Gupta said he’s excited to work alongside the city to move the swim center’s full renovation forward, stressing it benefits the community at large.
“It’s not a luxury to know how to swim and have a facility that provides that kind of opportunity,” Gupta told San José Spotlight. “It’s actually building our community, our young people, the next generation. We’re investing in them.”
Contact B. Sakura Cannestra at [email protected] or @SakuCannestra on X.
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