Carnegie Holdings LLC, based in California, has upped the ante on a 137-acre tract owned by Buncombe County, submitting an upset bid of $5.25 million that edges out the property’s original potential buyer by $250,000.
The Board of Commissioners had approved the sale of the property, which sits along Brevard Road and the French Broad River, to South Carolina-based Deep River South Development for $5 million during a meeting on Jan. 9.
County attorney Michael Frue says the county received the bid from Carnegie Holdings on Jan. 22, which reset the clock on the upset bid process, a period of 10 days in which interested parties can make higher offers for the property. New bids must increase the most recent bid by no less than 10 percent of the first $1,000 and 5 percent of the balance. The way the process is set up, if the county doesn’t receive a new bid by Feb. 5, the property will go to Carnegie Holdings.
The city of Asheville annexed the land in 1999 before selling it to Henderson County in 2002. Henderson County in turn sold the property to Buncombe County in 2015. The county bought the property in 2015 for $6.8 million, which was offset by a $3.4 million payment from the city of Asheville, in the hope of convincing Oregon-based Deschutes Brewery to open its East Coast expansion in the area. Deschutes ultimately opted to build the facility in Roanoke, Va.
During the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners meeting on Jan. 9, Frue said other developers had expressed interest in the property as a potential economic development or industrial site but that the terrain didn’t accommodate those uses, with only about 88 of the 137 acres being usable.
In an effort to make the property more appealing to developers, the county worked with the city of Asheville to rezone the property from industrial to residential multifamily high-density, which Asheville City Council approved in November.
During the meeting on Jan. 9, interim Planning Director Nathan Pennington said the city of Asheville would fully review any development application on that property.
Jennifer Lanning, a real estate agent with Exit Realty Vistas in Arden and the broker for Carnegie Holdings’ owner, Ron Hirji, says that, pending approval from the city of Asheville, the property could contain single-family housing as well as affordable housing in some form.
For more information about the Ferry Road property see:
Like the Parkside controversy, another bit of flotsam flying off the regional fight over water.
Great place to build a brewery.
And then a hotel on top of it.