On the Record: City Council candidate Kevan Frazier on cover songs, multifamily housing and grants

When it comes to music, Asheville City Council candidate Kevan Frazier has a secret.

“See, my guilty pleasure is listening to unexpected auditions,” he says, noting Susan Boyle, the Scottish singer who rose to fame in 2009 following her surprisingly powerful performance of “I Dreamed a Dream” on the series “Britain’s Got Talent.”

His confession comes within the first few minutes of our meeting inside a conference room at Well Played Board Game Café, which Frazier owns. The conversation marks the second in Xpress‘ limited series, “On the Record,” in which I meet with individual Council candidates and listen to their album of choice as we discuss the local arts scene.

The only problem is Frazier doesn’t have a selection. “I never had one of those [favorite] albums,” he says. “It’s all about the song. The vocals.”

Given the series’ premise, I gently nudge him. Frazier lists some artists he admires: Michael Jackson, Dolly Parton, Celine Dion. He also notes his appreciation for a wide swath of musical genres — from hip-hop to bluegrass. But he cannot settle on an album.

“You know this is going to be included in the article,” I say, speaking aloud the imaginary headline: “Kevan Frazier is a rule breaker.”

We both laugh, and eventually Frazier shares another secret: He enjoys a good cover.

I latch onto this detail, pulling up a random Spotify playlist, “Covers that are better than the originals,” and hit play. As Cake’s 1996 rendition of Gloria Gaynor‘s 1978 classic “I Will Survive” begins, I think to myself, “So too will this series.”

And with that, Frazier and I begin chatting about the local arts scene.

Updates needed

As with fellow candidate and inaugural “On the Record” participant Tod Leaven, housing is a top priority for Frazier.

“If folks can’t afford to live in Buncombe County … we’ll see that the arts scene moves into the smaller communities,” Frazier says.

The May 2024 Creative Spaces Report by ArtsAVL suggests this creative migration is well underway. Of the 400 individuals surveyed in the report, 15% said they are no longer based in Buncombe County due to rising costs. And 51% of participants said they did not have access to an affordable creative space in the county.

A native of Western North Carolina and a graduate of UNC Asheville, Frazier says it was not always this way. “Asheville’s arts community grew … in the ’60s and ’70s because it was cheap to live here,” he points out.

As today’s home prices soar and inventory dwindles, Frazier believes it is on City Council to update the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO), which was originally drafted in 1997 with an emphasis on single-family housing.

Frazier, who studied history both as an undergraduate and graduate, says the UDO’s departure from multifamily housing does not align with Asheville’s past. He identifies portions of North Asheville as evidence of the city’s former embrace of a mixed-housing approach. “While there may be some big houses [on Kimberly Avenue], there are also some modest apartment buildings along the way,” he says. “The UDO doesn’t really support that.”

Creating more incentives for developers to create affordable housing, as well as commercial spaces, he says, would benefit the local economy — including the creative sector.

Moving forward

As a downtown resident and business owner, Frazier says he sees firsthand the multiple benefits the arts bring to the city’s Central Business District.

“One is just the value of the work itself, the content,” he says. “But there’s also a significant economic impact.”

Concerts at Rabbit Rabbit and Eulogy, he continues, create a noticeable uptick in sales at Well Played. “Folks end up coming over here [after shows] and hanging out,” he says. “Those kinds of things have a great impact [on a business].”

For this reason, Frazier says, it is imperative that the city remain intentional about keeping the arts downtown. As an in-state example, he points to the 2008 opening of the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC). According to the DPAC website, the venue hosts up to 600,000 guests per year and has generated over $1 billion in measured economic impact since its launch.

Based on Asheville’s recent history, however, Frazier worries about the city’s ability to execute effective plans. “It’s like with the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium,” he says. “We have to have a path moving forward.”

For years, renovation plans and proposals for the downtown venue have experienced delays. In 2020, a $100 million makeover was under consideration before the COVID-19 lockdowns temporarily eliminated the need for a large public gathering space. More recently, between July 2023 and March of this year, the auditorium was closed to full-capacity concerts and events due to a broken HVAC system. Last month, Asheville City Council approved a contract for the repair and replacement of HVAC parts and equipment.

Frazier says one of the issues that prompted him to join the City Council race was the delays he kept seeing for projects such as Thomas Wolfe Auditorium renovations and the 2020-approved park plans for the empty lot across from the auditorium, nicknamed “The Pit of Despair.”

“Folks have great ideas,” he says. “But we don’t seem to be able to pull the things together to get us moving forward.”

Beyond the big three

When it comes to funding city projects, Frazier believes City Council should look beyond the “three big dogs — property tax, sales tax and fees.” He points to the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, which is a public nonprofit that launched in 1993. In Frazier’s opinion, combining public and private dollars is a model worthy of consideration.

As are grants, he continues. “I wish we had been in the position to do more grant work around water and waste,” he says, noting that other cities and counties across the country have taken advantage of such opportunities.

And while some of this potential future funding might go to arts-related projects, Frazier notes that his top priorities would be addressing Asheville’s housing crisis and public safety concerns. Equity and environmentalism are also among his key issues.

“In the end, I’m just a kid from Appalachia,” he says. “I grew up in a working-class household and was really fortunate to have supportive parents and [access] to a public education and a public higher education that led me to be able to do the things that I do today. And so I want to help by being part of providing whatever I can to support people to be able to do that themselves — whatever their dreams or whatever they want to accomplish out of this lifetime.”