Asheville Citizen-Times from Asheville, North Carolina • Page A4

PAGE 4A 4,2015 ASHEVILLE CITIZEN-TIMES Multistory hotels have taken root in spaces once occupied by small businesses downtown, offering more revenue for nearby shops and eateries and more jobs for locals. But those jobs provide wages where not all can afford to enjoy what the city offers. Strip development has long since replaced farmland in south Asheville. Now awave of new apartment complexes is itting that area, a sign of the shortage of affordable homes. The problem is set to become a defining issue for Asheville in the years to come.

The gymnastics warehouse, rather, provides a case study in advancement that all would see as good. Back in the post-World War II era, Jerry father, Joseph, operated a endering operation on the site. Lamb fat and other unusable animal parts went into a big pressure cooker to boil, or render, the material down to valuable rease and bone meal. A 84-year-old developer and inform al Asheville historian, Sternberg said his father led multiple enterprises in the 1930s, and onward, including hide and fur businesses, an herbs operation, a crap metal operation and the rendering plant. hen Jerry Sternberg was a kid, he spent his afternoons salting cowhides so hey rot, or removing fur pelts from wooden frameworks, usually making 10 cents an hour, sometimes talking his friends into the doing the work, too, om Sawyer-style.

Neither job was an olfactory treat, but he rendering plant that was another world. talking about something that smelled Sternberg said with a augh. built that new plant on Riverside (where the gym is now). Daddy sold i out maybe 15 years later and they closed the plant, but the building laid there for 10 years, empty. And every summer you could still smell Sternberg thought for sure the gym- astics business would fail.

Now he gets a kick out of the and as he calls them, the kids who most afternoons fill up his warehouse on Riverside Drive. Owner Becca Hall said she and her other, Angie Trail, who helped finance A sheville Community Movement, had ormulated a business plan that called for 20 students the first month, the bare minimum needed to make it fly. we were Hall said. sat down and had a conversation my mom and I about what we were willing to lose. I have much to lose, but she had a lot.

We were like, we lose everything trying to do this, OK with That first month they signed up 100 kids. What seemed like a hand-wringing eap of faith three years ago now feels ike a long-term winning decision, especially as some $250 million in investment i going into the River Arts District over he next six years. An empty downtown Chuck Tessier, owner of Tessier Associates Real Estate Management and dir ector of planning for Buncombe County from 1974 to 1984, had a much less pungent childhood. But like Sternberg, Tessier, 66, has witnessed multiple Ashe- ille transformations in his lifetime. I think Asheville continues to evolve, a nd really remarkable about the downtown in particular, is it has evolved from a place that was really completely filled and thriving (after World War II) to one where 25 percent of it was occupied (in the late 1980s and early and now back to thriving Tessier said.

the evolution of that was an interesting When Tessier was growing up, Sears, Roebuck Co. was located where the Buncombe County Social Services building is now on Coxe Avenue, with a parking lot where the downtown bus terminal i s. That was the only place you could find aparking spot downtown, and Tessier and his friends would walk a loop that passed the Belk department store at the corner of Church and Patton, the Imperial Theater nearby and the Kress and Woolworth dime stores. The Bon Marche department store thrived where the aywood Park Hotel is now, and J.C. Penney packed in shoppers not far away.

make your way through that loop and back to Sears, and it was all ompletely Tessier said, re- alling that energy downtown. all hose stores moved to Tunnel Road in For decades, Beaucatcher Tunnel served as the de facto dividing line bet ween the urban center and outlying country, but Tunnel Road near the tunnel as home to a string of drive-ins Babe and as ell as motels catering to Americans hooked on automobiles in the 1950s. Where Buffalo Wild Wings is now, a Gulf station boasted a huge map of Weste rn North Carolina where tourists could find the Great Smoky Mountains or the herokee Indian Reservation. Their children could run amok in a nearby in- ground trampoline park. But when developer Richard L.

Colem an Sr. sited Asheville Mall a little farther out Tunnel Road in the early 1970s, he flight from downtown was on. Most of the big department stores left for the mall, and as the strip boomed, downtown nearly died. Asheville Mall opened (in 1 971), there were huge questions about hat we were going to said Leslie Anderson, a city of Asheville Parks Recreation worker who moved on to head the Downtown Development Office from 1986 to 1995. became so pro- ounced when the department stores eft downtown when the mall opened it was like a bomb went off The Development Office spearheaded a public-private partnership involving all levels of governments, businesses, property owners and the community.

But it took time. At one point in the 1980s, raccoons took up residence in some vacant buildings, drawn by the ubiquitous pigeons and their eggs. Banks, government offices and other institutions had remained, but the core was on life support. I 1980, city leaders proposed pulling he plug on a large swath of it and starting over. A Philadelphia development irm unveiled plans to level most of the a rea between Haywood Street and Broadway on the north side of downtown a nd build a mall with four department tores, a convention hotel and office space.

he plan was contingent on the city borrowing $40 million via bonds to buy and prepare the site, but a 1981referen- dum to approve them was voted down by a2-1margin. Some opponents said the city should not change the character of the areas on either side of North Lexington Avenue. Some just want to pay for the plan. The resurgence The vote determined what would not go downtown. The next question was what would.

After the downtown mall proposal failed, downtown slowly began a reemergence, first with companies moving into upper-floor offices, then with a few brave pioneers investing in condos, restaurants and retail. Virtually every other city in the United States saw retail business and residential construction move to the suburbs during the second half of the 20th centu- y. Although there are many other places here residents and retailers have rediscovered their center cities, Ashe- renewed focus on downtown hap- ened sooner and has been more successful than in most. ne of the biggest steps in rocess was the opening of Pack Place in 1992 on land where a movie theater had nce stood. Around the same time, private developers aided by the city renovated older buildings on three sides of the arts complex, stretching from the Jackson Building west to where Salsa estaurant is near the eastern end of Patton Avenue and along part of Biltmore A venue.

essier said between 1985 and 1990, some $200 million was reinvested in owntown Asheville. A recession slowed efforts, but they picked back up after 1995 as developers and the late philanthropist Julian Price infused cash into Growth Continued from Page 1A Key dates in history 1950. Smoky Park Bridge, now Bow en Bridge, was built and Patton A venue extended into West Asheville. 1956. Westgate, the first mall-type hopping center in Western North arolina, opened just west of Smoky Park Bridge.

1 959. A portion of Interstate 40 pened in Buncombe County, making the area more accessible to the est of the Southeast. 1 961. What is now Asheville Region- al Airport opened. 1 963.

Robert Ingle opened the first I ngles supermarket in Asheville. The company grew to 201supermarkets i six Southeastern states and is one Buncombe largest employers. 1 964. What is now the Build- i ng opened in the middle of downtown as the Northwestern Bank uilding. 1 967.

The Blue Ridge Parkway was completed around Asheville, leaving a section on Grandfather Mountain a the only unfinished portion of the road. 1 972. Asheville Mall opened, suck- i ng much of the retail activity out of downtown in one fell swoop. 1 974. Asheville Civic Center opened ith an appearance by comedian Bob Hope.

1 979. The first Bele Chere was held owntown, an attempt to bring some life to a portion of the city any residents had come to ignore. 1 980. Following years of controversy over whether to build another unnel through Beaucatcher Mount ain or blast a giant notch in it, Interstate 240 opened through eaucatcher Cut. 1 992.

Pack Place, Education, Arts and Science Center opened, a key tep in the reinvigoration of down- own. 2002. The Grove Arcade, which had eld federal government offices ince the 1940s, reopened after renovation as a retail center with ffices and apartments on upper loors. 2003. The former Beacon Blankets actory burned in Swannanoa and emolition began on the former Sayles-Biltmore Bleacheries in East A sheville to make way for a Walm art shopping center.

ASHEVILLE Plenty of developers over long careers have built retail shops, apartments, homes and offices. ut not many can say essentially built a town, as Jack Cecil has. ecil, 59, is president of Biltmore arms, which over the past two dec- a des is responsible for erecting five otels, the residential developments of iltmore Park, Biltmore Lake and the Ramble, as well as Biltmore Town quare, essentially a small town in the heart of Biltmore Park in southern Buncombe County. hile progress became dicey during he Great Recession of 2008-09, Bilt- ore Town Square, a 55-acre core sur- ounded by about 800 acres of resi- ential development, is a thriving ixed-used development now. The Town Center comprises ground- evel retail with apartments, condos and offices above, as well as a Hilton otel, the Reuter YMCA, a movie theater, numerous restaurants and several corporate offices and multiple parking decks.

completely full in the office apartments, sold out of town omes and condos and roughly 90 percent full in the Cecil said. ou see that is left open, on the retail ide, is deliberately being held for na- ional I assessment, vision as correct, but the timing was because the Town Center idea kicked ff about two years before the economic downturn. of the multiple uses, it a llowed us to endure and make it hrough the Great Recession, because he offices and apartments and the otel did far better than the condos and he retail, which lagged far ecil said. His philosophy is to build ommunity, not just a subdivision or strip shopping center, and he points to he interconnection of Biltmore Park with local schools, entertainment and walking trails as evidence, as well as the establishment of the MCA as one of the first buildings in Town quare. he idea required iltmore Farms to secure a new zoning esignation from the city of Asheville, ixed-use urban center, which allowed for more density and higher buildings i nstead of more sprawl.

Homeowners and retailers have responded, and not just at Biltmore ark, which has about 600 homes and 7 00 apartments. The 900-acre Biltmore ake subdivision in Enka, started a ecade ago, has 700 homes, with apart- ents and retail built by other devel- pers on the fringe. The Ramble, a high-end neighbor- ood off Hendersonville Road in Arden, between the Town of Biltmore Forest a nd Biltmore Park, has sold 225 lots, with an ultimate goal of 500-600 homes, on about 900 acres. The developed property all was once part of the massive Biltmore Estate, and Cecil is a descendant of estate uilder George Vanderbilt. Ben Teague, executive director of he Economic Development Coalition of A sheville Buncombe County, says pale in compari- on to what Jack does for the communi- When companies are considering A sheville, Cecil is a go-to guy, sought out for his business acumen and willingness to work with any company ooking to locate here, not just compa- ies interested in his properties.

Jack would never say this, or brag himself, but he has almost single- andedly changed the trajectory of here our community will be in 10, 15 Teague said. Biltmore Park developer changed JOHN BOYLE Jack Cecil Average annual pay Year uncombe 2001 $36,219 $32,024 $28,701 2 002 36,764 32,689 28,973 2003 $37,765 $33,532 $29,664 2 004 39,354 34,791 30,737 2005 $40,677 $35,912 $31,827 2 2007 $44,458 $38,909 $34,318 2009 $45,559 $39,844 $35,478 2011 $48,043 $42,121 $36,338 2013 $49,808 $43,795 $37,423 decline While the sectors with the most employees in Buncombe County are a nd the shift in our engine is visible in this chart showing numb er of employees in manufacturing and tourism. Wages increase Salaries for jobs in manufacturing and in Buncombe County have risen significantly since 2000, while hospitality wages have seen only slight growth..