A Big Blue Swim School location will open at the White City Shopping Center in Shrewsbury this summer.
Melissa Schorr and Gary Cohen of Cohasset are opening the youth-focused swim school at the former Party City location at the plaza. The married couple are the Massachusetts franchise owners for the Illinois-based business founded by former U.S. national champion swimmer Chris DeJong in 2009.
The Shrewsbury location is expected to open this summer and will join Massachusetts locations in Framingham, Dartmouth, and Methuen.
The site will feature a four-foot-deep heated pool designed to make young swimmers comfortable, with a glass-walled lobby allowing parents to watch. The business has begun hiring and will focus on children ages 3 months to 12 years, Schorr said.
“As much water as there is with rivers and lakes in Massachusetts, there’s not enough dedicated teaching water that gives people the time and ability to get safely in the water and learn this skill,” Cohen said.
Children who take swimming lessons have an 88% lower risk of drowning compared to those who don’t, according to a 2015 study by the National Institutes of Health.
The Party City location at the site closed after the New Jersey-based company filed for bankruptcy in December 2024, with the leases for its five Central Massachusetts locations auctioned off.
Big Blue will join other tenants like Planet Fitness and Dunkin’ at the plaza, which is owned by Inland Real Estate Income Trust of Illinois, according to real estate data firm CoStar.
Eric Casey is the managing editor at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the real estate and banking & finance industries.
