Award-winning architect, Arthur Dyson, FAIA, dean emeritus of the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, has designed a green, state-of-the-art educational Fresno Aquarium and research campus (Phase Two rendering above) featuring a 2 million gallon reef aquarium for the nonprofit 501(c)(3) Aquarius Aquarium Institute of Fresno.

Our 10-acre site, a former sand and gravel mining and asphalt plant, was generously donated to the Institute by the Roy and Betty Jura family. It closed escrow in August 2006 after the Aquarium project completed all of its environmental studies and received the unanimous approval of the Fresno County Planning Commission.

The property overlooks Reach 1 of the San Joaquin River Restoration and is adjacent to Highway 99 at the northern entrance to the City and County of Fresno at the western end of the 3,500-acre San Joaquin River Parkway within the federally-designated San Joaquin River Blueway.

After the Fresno City Council unanimously voted on January 27, 2009 to amend the City's 2025 General Plan to include the Aquarium property, the City of Fresno received unanimous approval from the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo) on April 15, 2009 to bring the project into its adopted Sphere of Influence. This approval was required in order for us to extend City water and sewer lines to the Aquarium in the future.

The Fresno County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on June 21, 2011 to adopt a revised Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) that included the Fresno Aquarium project.

All of these complicated steps require a great deal of political and monetary support and the Institute's Board of Directors and founders Tom and Aletha Lang are sincerely grateful for all that we've received thus far. We hope you will join us or continue your support in any way possible to help us make this important educational facility for the entire San Joaquin Valley a reality very soon!