Due to the difficult and high maintenance costs of the roof, the building was proposed to be demolished before its 1998 refurbishment and again in the 2010s as part of a council reorganisation and cost-saving measure of leisure services in Wrexham County Borough.

The plans were abandoned in 2015 due to funding concerns, and the centre was instead transferred to a trust, Freedom Leisure, in 2016 for ten years.

Since being transferred to a trust, a petition was launched to reinstate the centre's unofficial mascot, a green inflatable alien.

Prior to Waterworld, the then town's former baths dating to 1901 were located on Tuttle Street to the cost of £9,985 (equivalent to £1,369,239 in 2023)[2] and used heating from the neighbouring incinerator.

[3] It was later threatened with demolition, but was renovated[4] instead and re-opened in March 1998 by Queen Elizabeth II,[2][8] as "Wrexham's Waterworld".

In the study, the building was considered to be partly converted into potentially either a cinema, theatre, dry leisure complex, an exhibition/conference centre, bars or nightclubs.

[10][15] In January 2014, following proposals to close the centre was announced, concerned locals had contacted Cadw, the Welsh Government's historic environment service, for protection, asking for the building to be listed.

[16] In February 2014, Wrexham County Borough Council councillors voted to close the centre and possibly replace it with a new facility.

[34] In February 2018, an unnamed member of the public, criticised the trust-managed centre as "disgusting and unhygienic", in particular the building's upper floors.

[35] In May 2019, a petition was launched to bring back the "Wrexham Waterworld alien", the unofficial mascot for the centre.

The inflatable green alien was visible from the building's window overlooking the roundabout adjacent to Tesco in Wrexham.

[36] As of 2022, while there are no formal proposals to close the centre, the council has still considered building a new facility elsewhere in Wrexham, as part of a longer-term strategy to reorganise the area's leisure services.

[1][4] The reinforced concrete construction has suffered issues relating to the moisture and chlorine air in the inside of the building, and weathering on the outside.