Leisure Square — Vero Beach, Florida

Leisure Square is a city recreation complex at 3705 16th Street in Vero Beach, built around what the City of Vero Beach Leisure Square page calls a large, heated lap pool. The complex belongs to the city Recreation Department, not to Indian River County. The Recreation Department page lists a dedicated Leisure Square phone line, 772-770-6500, apart from the department office at 2266 14th Avenue, and the Leisure Square page itself gives 772-770-6501 as the direct number.

Around the pool, the Leisure Square Fitness Center groups basketball courts, a cardiovascular room, a dance and exercise room, a weight room, lockers with hot and cold showers, meeting rooms, one indoor, air-conditioned racquetball court, volleyball courts and two lighted sports fields. The city Facilities directory entry for Leisure Square adds a baseball and softball diamond, a football field, a pavilion, a playground and a sand volleyball court, and gives [email protected] as the contact address.

The complex serves a small city with a large county around it. Vero Beach had 17,042 residents in ACS 2024 5-year data reported by Census Reporter, and in 2019 former City Manager Jim O'Connor told Vero Beach 32963 that more than 60 percent of the people using Vero Beach parks and recreational facilities were county residents who live outside the city.

The City of Vero Beach describes the Leisure Square pool as large and heated and lists it as a lap pool. Pool information on the facility page states that lifeguards are on duty at the pool and that children under two should wear swim diapers. The Recreation Department mission commits the department to provide trained, certified water safety personnel at city beaches and aquatic facilities, so the same department that guards the Vero Beach oceanfront also staffs the 16th Street pool deck.

As of October 8, 2026, neither the Leisure Square page nor the Facilities directory publishes the pool's length, depth or lane count, so those figures are left out here rather than estimated. What the city does publish is how the Leisure Square pool can be booked. The Facilities directory lists two pool subfacilities, one named Pool and one named Pool Special Events, each tied to an availability calendar. The Leisure Square page says the swimming pool, meeting rooms, racquetball court, volleyball court, and ball fields are available for rental, with rates given by phone.

Who swims there is documented mainly through 2019 reporting. WPTV reported that the Leisure Square Pool is open all year and is used by groups from seniors to youth swimmers and the Special Olympics. Vero News reported that the Vero Beach High School swim team practiced at the pool and that city officials estimated 400 to 500 people used it weekly. CBS12 called Leisure Square the city's only public swimming pool.

On October 8, 2026, the City of Vero Beach posted these Leisure Square hours: Monday 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.; Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 7:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.; Friday 7:00 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday 7:00 a.m. to 2 p.m.; and closed on Sunday. The schedule covers the whole facility. The city page does not break out separate lap swim or open swim blocks for the pool, and Leisure Square takes questions through an online Information Request Form.

Leisure Square fees follow a schedule set by the Vero Beach City Council, according to the Recreation Department mission statement. The department page links a rates and fees schedule effective October 1, 2026, but that schedule is a PDF, and its pool admission and membership prices could not be confirmed for this page. The last published membership figures date from 2019, when Vero News reported that about 220 city residents held individual monthly memberships to the pool and gym at $25, while 240 non-city residents paid $30 a month. The department notes that all fees are subject to change without notice.

Leisure Square pricing tiers depend on residency. The Recreation Department defines a city resident as someone who lives within the city limits of Vero Beach or owns real estate in its corporate limits, and a non-city resident as someone living elsewhere in Indian River County. Listed proof of residency is a voter registration, tax receipt or electric bill, with the caveat that some non-city residents pay City of Vero Beach utilities. The same page says programs are open to all residents of Indian River County, that financial assistance is available, and that credits are issued in place of refunds.

Summer camps are the largest scheduled program at Leisure Square. The city camps page states that, unless otherwise noted, camps are held at the Leisure Square Fitness Center, and for 2026 it listed two camps for children 6 to 12: a Sports/Aquatics Camp and the Aerial Antics Camp. Nine one-week sessions ran from June 1 to July 31, 2026, with registration opening March 2, 2026. The weekly cost, lunch included, was $95 for city residents and $130 for non-city residents, and swimming appears on the activity lists of both camps.

Aerial Antics, which the City of Vero Beach described in 2026 as in its 51st year, trains children in gymnastics, tumbling, circus aerial and dance for the Aerial Antics Youth Circus, staged July 30, July 31 and August 1, 2026, at Saint Edward's School. Gymnastics continues through the year at the Centerstage Acrobatic Complex, and the city states that all gymnastics classes are held in Centerstage at Leisure Square. Sessions cost $60 for six weeks for city residents and $75 for county residents, with registration days beginning at 8:00 a.m. at Leisure Square on October 17, January 23, March 13 and June 12.

The Leisure Square page also notes that several dance and exercise programs are offered on site, without listing a timetable. For meetings and parties, the TUFF Room at Leisure Square, a room on the grounds of the complex, holds a maximum of 50 people theater style or 20 seated at tables, according to the city Facilities directory.

CBS12 reported in July 2019 that the Leisure Square swimming pool at 3705 16th Street had been open since 1972. Vero News reported the same month that the complex, which also includes a gymnastics program, was acquired by the City of Vero Beach in the late 1980s. For years after that, city and county recreation were combined: Vero Beach 32963 reported that Vero Beach and Indian River County ran a joint recreation department until 2002, with the county paying the city $680,000 a year in the final years before a split that the county initiated.

With the two departments separate, Indian River County runs pools of its own. Vero News named them as the Gifford Aquatic Center and the North County Aquatic Center, and Vero Beach 32963 wrote in August 2019 that Leisure Square provided the only public swimming pool in the southern half of the county, while the county recreation department operated two swimming pools. Jim O'Connor, the retired Vero Beach city manager, said in the same article that the city absorbs 100 percent of the costs of its recreation facilities.

At a workshop on the 2020 budget in July 2019, the Vero Beach City Council decided to close the money-losing Leisure Square pool on January 1 and build a skate park at the complex instead, Vero News reported. Council members put the pool's cost at about $194,000 a year against $25,000 in revenue, and WPTV reported that City Manager Monte Falls said the pool was losing around $170,000 a year. Mayor Val Zudans argued that pool users could move to the county aquatic centers, and County Administrator Jason Brown answered that the county pools do not turn a profit either.

More than 100 protesters packed council chambers in Vero Beach at the July 16, 2019 meeting, and supporters spoke for about three hours, according to Vero News, which reported that the council called the decision reversible at final budget approval in September. WPTV later reported that the pool needed more than $115,000 in the next year's budget and that the vote to keep it open was unanimous, with the money reinstated. On October 8, 2026, the city's Leisure Square page still listed the heated lap pool, with lifeguards on duty.