Creative Asheville

“Only 20 short years ago, there was little cause for celebration in Asheville’s downtown ghost town. Eight-five percent of downtown retail space were empty. Tourists weren’t interested. Locals stayed home.” Tamra Strentz, a downtown business owner and member of the downtown association, made those comments in a column about the resurgence of the historic area. Today the downtown is booming with the old buildings filled. And because the downtown was in such horrible shape, no one bothered to knock down the old buildings so the historical ones have remained.

From a ghost town in its downtown area only 20 years ago, Asheville has been resurrected into a thriving downtown. My wife and I were awestruck with the vibrancy we saw as we explored it. We saw few vacancies and new construction of condos, always a sure sign that something very positive is happening. Yates Pharr, VP of Commercial Development for Biltmore Farms, who gave our NAIOP group a tour of the downtown told us, “There are still some rents of $3/sf in the very eclectic areas of the downtown. The new condos are going for $350/sf.

When I commented that I’d never seen a wider diversity of people and shops in a town this size he told me, “We’ve been called the funkiest town in America.” I could see why.

An example of the revitalization that has occurred is the Haywood Park Hotel, a boutique hotel which was originally built as a department store. When the downtown spiraled downward, the department store closed and a Dollar Tree discount store moved into the lobby. The upper three floors were abandoned. Robert Armstrong purchased the building along with other neighboring underutilized historic buildings and spent $3.2 million converting it into a 33 room luxury hotel.

HandMade in America recently completed a study on the impact of the creative occupations in downtown Asheville. These occupations included: Computers; Architecture; Alternative Healing; Education; Media and Arts. Much of the resurgence in the downtown area is due to this last category which grew out of HandMade in America’s efforts to develop the crafts industry into a more vibrant economy. There are dozens of galleries and studios that dot downtown interspersed with restaurants, small stores and other retail establishments.

HandMade spent four months, working 254 hours of time to document and visually show the impact upon the local economy from these creative people. Their findings: 170 buildings (47% of the total buildings) hosted at least one creative business; occupy 1.7 million sf; 31% of the space; and have a total real estate value of $61.7 million.

Jack Cecil showed me the visual demonstration of the downtown buildings with their percentage occupied by creative companies. The darker the color, the higher the percentage of creative companies.