Who can afford to live here and how can we all live together? Those questions formed the crux of the conversation among Asheville City Council candidates at a Sept. 18 forum where two issues garnered strong and varying viewpoints: the lack of affordable housing and persistent racial tensions in Asheville.
In the seven months since the city of Asheville altered its regulations to give City Council more oversight over large building and hotel projects, Council has approved two proposed hotels. Xpress takes a closer look to see what it looks like when hotels try to pass muster before Council.
On June 1, Duke Energy Progress filed a request with the N.C. Utilities Commission to raise rates an average of 14.9 percent. Xpress examines why Duke says it needs more revenue and how the rate hike could affect local customers.
Contract negotiations between Mission Health and Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina remain at an impasse as the renewal deadline looms in less than a month. Meanwhile, Park Ridge Health and Pardee Hospital make preparations to take up the slack.
Asheville City Council passed a resolution condemning the actions of white supremacists and racial violence in Charlottesville earlier this month. Council members also resolved to support the designation of Big Ivy as a wilderness area, and voted to move forward with a phased approach to a greenway along Lyman Street to Amboy Road. A proposal to reduce the minimum width of residential lots by 20 percent citywide was sent back to the city’s Planning & Zoning Commission for further study.
Along with Morganton’s Industrial Commons, Mountain BizWorks is hosting an educational workshop on cooperative, worker-owned businesses on Wednesday, Aug. 23.
In this two-part series, Xpress invites you on a guided a trip down the river as we examine the work of various communities to write the next chapter in the French Broad’s history, beginning with Transylvania and Henderson counties.
A new yoga center will pop up in town in October. West Asheville Yoga owner Cat Matlock has bought out One Center Yoga and has plans to transform it into a wellness center. Matlock says the new Embodiment Center will offer alignment yoga, vinyasa yoga, ayurvedic medicine, dancing, health coaching and kirtan.
On Friday, Aug. 11, McKibbon Hospitality’s AC Hotel Asheville Downtown will open to guests. Located at the intersection of Broadway and College Street, the hotel boasts 132 guest rooms, along with 336 parking spaces in a four-story parking deck.
As part of its summer Buzz Breakfast series, Leadership Asheville (a program of UNC Asheville) hosted “How will Asheville grow thoughtfully?” on July 26 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. The event explored the public sector’s role in shaping and encouraging the city’s growth.
Two years in the making, the proposed form-based code for the River Arts District isn’t a done deal yet. At its July 25 meeting, Asheville City Council sent the code back to the Planning and Zoning Commission for deliberation on removing short-term lodging from the uses permitted in commercial areas of the district.
With a new, larger location and a host of experts from across the cybersecurity world, the 4th annual Asheville Bsides cybersecurity conference comes to downtown July 28-29, in hopes of helping local businesses protect their digital networks and growing Asheville’s nascent IT industry.
With balloons, fancy hats, Zumba and gospel singing all featuring as part of the activities in the full-day Western Women’s Business Conference on June 21, it wasn’t your average business gathering. Designed to support and empower women in business, especially women of color and those from disadvantaged backgrounds, the conference was chock-full of inspiration and success stories.
Asheville’s bustling economy owes much to the city’s continued popularity as a tourist destination, but the area is also benefiting from a wave of local business expansions.
A weekend of family business experiences and research filled the Renaissance Asheville Hotel in early June, bringing together attendees from 27 countries. The 13th annual Family Enterprise Research Conference was hosted by the Family Business Forum at UNC Asheville. Held annually, FERC brings together family businesses and representatives from all over the world who […]
Each week, Xpress highlights notable WNC crowdsourcing initiatives that may inspire readers to become new faces in the crowd. This week features a clothing company’s newly invented shorts, a documentary on racial integration in Brevard and a fictional film on uncovering childhood secrets.
Procedural delays introduced by state and federal regulators nearly ran out the clock on the 2017 planting season, but growers have managed to get hemp plants and seeds in local dirt for the first time in 70 years. Hemp entrepreneurs say they hope the crop will prove a boon for WNC farmers and natural products manufacturers.
A recent visit from international beer importers may point to new distribution possibilities for Asheville’s brewing industry.
Asheville, NC
Each week, Xpress highlights notable WNC crowdsourcing initiatives that may inspire readers to become new faces in the crowd. This week features a garden program at Swannanoa Correctional Center for Women and entrepreneur Andrea Olson’s latest invention: The Baby Potty.
Asheville, NC