Collegiate Times

The Virginia Tech swim and dive team opened its season in the new 64,000 square-foot Christiansburg Aquatic Center on Oct. 16.

If you drive down North Franklin Street toward the Montgomery County Courthouse in downtown Christiansburg, the structure that dwarfs all others is bound to catch your eye.

The titanic edifice is actually the new 64,000 square-foot Christiansburg Aquatic Center. One the New River Valley’s latest gems, the center opened in July.

The center offers a slew of activities and programs, including kayak instruction, water aerobics, life guarding courses and scuba and snorkeling classes. 

One can get in with a membership, or pay a daily admission price ranging from $2 to $6.

“It’s more than a swimming pool,” said Wanda Roberts, a resident of Pulaski. “It also has therapeutic uses and a lot more for people who want to do more than just lie out in the sun.”

Although the center specializes in birthday parties for kids, it has brought in people of all ages who seek some relief or exercise.

“When you go over there, you can’t help but notice the age variety — it’s not just for kids,” Roberts said.

Roberts expects the daily turnout at the center to increase in the coming months as the temperature drops.

“They did have an outdoor pool here in Montgomery County but with this you can use it year-round,” Roberts said. “People are going to get bored and want something to do so I think there’s a good possibility of the attendance increasing in the coming months. 

“More people are going to be made aware of its existence. It will open up more to the residents of the entire New River Valley, not just of Christiansburg.”

Roberts, who commutes to Christiansburg daily for work, says the project is “community-specific” and doubts such an undertaking would be able to take shape in Pulaski.

“The town’s economic system is so different (compared to that of Christiansburg),” Roberts said. “They’ve tried similar, smaller projects in the past and there was not any support from the people. There’s not even a movie theatre in the town right now.”

Christiansburg Mayor Richard Ballengee said the entire project cost more than $17 million but will be well worth it because of the value to local merchants and restaurants.

Terry Caldwell, the center’s director of aquatics, also cites swim meets as a huge source of revenue.

“When you host these kinds of meets you have all these swimmers and their families coming to Christiansburg, staying in our hotels and eating at our restaurants,” Caldwell told the Collegiate Times over the summer.

Swimmers in Christiansburg are not the only ones taking advantage of the facility, which boasts a 50-meter competition pool, platforms for one-meter and three-meter springboards and a diving tower with five-meter, 7.5-meter and 10-meter
platforms.

The center has also affected the university’s swimming and diving programs.

According to Caldwell, Tech will pay $250,000 per year for 20 years to use the pool, though its lease to use the facility lasts 25 years.

The swimming and diving programs have begun to practice at the center in the mornings on a regular basis, with the coaches claiming it bears no comparison to the teams’ other pools at War Memorial Hall, a facility built in 1922.

Virginia Tech diving head coach Ron Piemonte told the Collegiate Times over the summer that the center is scheduled to host the 2012 ACC swim meet.  

“I’m going to get into the rotation of hosting the NCAA zone diving competitions,” Piemonte said. “It’s a separate meet that’s just diving, and it’s how divers qualify to go to the NCAAs.”

Along with invigorating the swimming and diving programs and providing a new means of entertainment for the area’s residents, the center’s central mission is to operate a public aquatic facility to increase health, water safety and the aquatic education of Christiansburg citizens and aquatic organizations.

“I think they’ve needed something like this for a while now,” Roberts said. “It gets people out of the house and has given them life as far as swimming again and having fun.”

A version of this article appeared in the Oct 28 issue of the Collegiate Times.