Jack London Aquatic Center

HISTORY

For generations, Oaklanders have been cut off from their waterfront: both the 880 freeway and the Amtrak/Pacific Union railroad tracks have served as visual and psychological barriers between the Estuary and the rest of the city.

Aware of this fact, in 1992 the Oakland League of Women Voters commissioned then-City Attorney Richard Winnie to explore the waterfront’s opportunities. Winnie’s findings emphasized the need to open the waterfront to the public and to connect the waterfront to Oakland’s neighborhoods. Two years later Vincent Horpel, then the rowing coach for Berkeley High School and an accomplished rower himself, founded the Jack London Aquatic Center to lobby for the development of a recreational aquatic center on the shores of the Oakland Estuary.

In June 1997 the Oakland City Council unanimously resolved to engage the Jack London Aquatic Center, Inc. to design and construct an aquatic center facility in Estuary Park, allocating $1.5 million to the project from Oakland’s Measure K Open Space bond fund. This underwriting was complemented by major grants from the public and private sectors. Construction was completed and the Center dedicated in October of 2000.

Since January 1, 2002, the Aquatic Center has been managed and operated by Jack London Aquatic Center, Inc., in agreement with the City of Oakland. Under that agreement, The Jack London Aquatic Center, Inc. now holds community-based water sports classes, licenses out aquatic center space to other groups and rents the upstairs community room facilities to the public.