The indoor leisure pools at the Green Ridge Recreation Center include two 20-yard lap lanes, a spa pool and an interactive play area. People questioned whether the money for the center should have been used another way, but a county official said the bonds "had to be used for the purpose they were sold."

Photos by STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS The Roanoke Times

People gathered in the gymnasium of the Green Ridge Recreation Center on Tuesday morning for Roanoke County's State of the County address. The center in North County is a $32 million, 75,000-square-foot facility scheduled to open Jan. 1. Board of supervisors Chairman Mike Altizer spoke to about 200 people at the gathering.

Arnold Covey (from left), director of community development with Roanoke County; Michael Russell, county engineer in the Salem District; and Scott Hodge, engineer with Aecom, tour the new workout room and the 1/8th-mile-long round indoor track of the Green Ridge Recreation Center.

As Roanoke County is in the process of simultaneously cutting back and pushing forward, it unveiled a partial look at a new enterprise that has come to provoke discussion of both:

The Green Ridge Recreation Center, a bold-looking $32 million, 75,000-square-foot facility in North County, is scheduled to open Jan. 1.

Board of supervisors Chairman Mike Altizer on Tuesday delivered Roanoke County's annual State of the County address to about 200 people at an early breakfast gathering, beneath the high ceiling of the center's gymnasium.

Nearby, Green Ridge's expansive exercise room, lined with as-yet-unused rows of 40 pieces of Precor cardio equipment and futuristic-looking Keiser stationary bikes, overlooks the center's indoor aquatics center and a 20,000-square-foot outdoor leisure pool, which sits below the sprawling spirals of recreational water slides.

Altizer in his speech cited other recent signs of county prosperity -- last month's $9.2 million conversion of the public safety radio system from analog to digital; increased activity at libraries; new and expanded businesses in the area, including Coca-Cola's move into the Valley Gateway Shell building; the partnerships with other localities that led to the Roanoke Valley Regional Fire Training Tower; and the upcoming expansion of four county schools and the planned construction of a new elementary school.

He addressed the current declining economy and state budget shortfalls, owing the recent avoidance of a $4 million deficit to "one-time revenues, higher than anticipated personal property numbers and serious belt tightening by our departments."

The "belt tightening," according to county spokeswoman Teresa Hamilton Hall, was represented by limiting purchases, travel and training, and delaying filling vacant positions. County administration instituted a "job bank" that requires department heads to justify hires to fill vacant positions.

"Departmental cuts alone in the last fiscal year resulted in a savings of $1.5 million," Hamilton Hall said. "We still are tightening up on so many things."

Altizer's speech also addressed the question of whether the money spent on the center -- drawn from the sale of about $58 million in bonds, which also funded a new fire and rescue station and the digital communications upgrade -- should have been saved or redirected elsewhere. That wasn't an option, he said.

"These funds had to be used for the purpose they were sold and could not be redirected to ongoing operating costs," Altizer explained.

The event, presented since 2002 by the Roanoke Regional Chamber of Commerce, came with a $17 to $27 admission fee and, in addition to a buffet-style breakfast, offered guests a chance to tour the new center, which is in the final phases of more than 18 months of construction.

Touting the more than 500 memberships issued before its opening, which represent about 1,300 people, Altizer said the facility would serve an additional function.

"In order for our region to flourish, we need to retain and attract young professionals while continually striving to better serve the citizens," he said. "Construction of the Green Ridge Recreation Center will be a significant factor in helping to attain all of these goals."