Returning for its second year, Hatch This combines techie business tropes including an accelerator, a hackathon and, of course, a party. The event takes place Friday-Sunday, Nov. 2-4. Participants will compete for $20,000 in prizes, including a $5,000 seed funding package. Also: who’s on the job, a state program to match federal business grants.
“It’s like the playing field that everyone’s playing on — that the economy’s playing on, that companies are playing on, that the government’s playing on — that playing field is starting to erode,” says Josh Dorfman, CEO of The Collider in downtown Asheville. “I think there’s more on the line than many people understand.”
Woman-owned businesses are the norm in Weaverville’s downtown district, a bustling hamlet that puts the lie to the notion of small towns as sleepy places where nothing much ever happens.
The Asheville city budget for fiscal year 2018-19 includes contains money to hire two new staffers, a security coordinator and technical support technician. Jonathan Feldman, city chief information officer, says Asheville’s IT department finds itself squeezed between increasing internal demand for digital work and “mushrooming” external security threats.
Canadian Haakon Industries announced plans to locate a manufacturing facility to build air handling units at Enka Commerce Park. The company says it will employ up to 160 workers within the first five years of operation in Enka. For the fourth time, Montreat College will host a cybersecurity conference.
Roughly 1,600 new hotel rooms have opened in Buncombe County since late 2015 — an increase of approximately 15 percent over that period — with 1,900 still planned. “Since the start of this construction cycle, we’ve been able to fully absorb a pretty enormous supply,” said Explore Asheville President and CEO Stephanie Pace Brown. “We just need to do that over again in the next three or four years.”
Hotelier John McKibbon predicts the massive 18-story project, which is filling the empty shell of the former BB&T building on Pack Square, will be complete by the end of March next year.
Firestorm Books & Coffee and The Steady Collective announced that they had formally appealed their notices of violation on Sept. 17. The appeals will likely be considered at the next meeting of the city’s Board of Adjustment, which takes place on Monday, Oct. 22. If the board rejects the appeals, the groups face civil penalties of $100 for every day they remain out of zoning compliance.
Three businesses — a float spa, a distillery and cocktail salon, and an immersive art experience — will seek the support of non-accredited investors (that is, regular people), who can purchase equity stakes in companies through crowdfunding campaigns at an event on Thursday, Sept. 20.
Learn more about B-corps, a local business awards program, local movers and shakers and data on Asheville’s economic indicators in our business news in brief from the issue of Sept. 12, 2018.
About 80 residents gathered to discuss 95 Broadway Hotel & Condos, a seven-story development of 30 guest rooms, 25 parking spots and seven condos proposed by property owner Victor Foo. Not a single attendee spoke in favor of the project, with criticisms ranging from practical concerns over parking to philosophical worries over the ongoing gentrification of Asheville.
Slated to open on Saturday, Sept. 1., the lot will offer 100 new spaces with 24/7 access at $70 per month. Dana Frankel, downtown development specialist with the city, notes that there is currently interest in over 80 of the 100 available spaces.
Meadows noted that Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Brock Long’s letter on Aug. 20 denying Gov. Roy Cooper’s request for a federal disaster declaration was likely the final word on the matter. “I think that decision has been made,” he said. “Obviously, that’s a decision that they didn’t feel met the threshold [for supplemental federal assistance].”
Garden Party, a new retail store, will host its grand opening Thursday, Aug. 30 in the former location of The Drygoods Shop at 474 Haywood Road in West Asheville. Several Asheville lawyers were named among the nation’s best, while
Ecosia.org, a search engine that uses all of its profits to plant trees, has selected Asheville as the home base for its United States representative.
At the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce’s 13th annual Elected Officials Reception on Aug. 16, local politicians acknowledged that the intensity of recent city and county government scandals have sometimes pushed other issues to the side.
Local farmers and manufacturers express concern about the impact retaliatory tariffs sparked by new Trump administration trade policies could have on their businesses.
Perhaps your business needs startup capital to make your idea fly. Or maybe rubbing elbows with lawmakers will give you an edge. Opportunities for building business skills, attracting investment and developing business relationships abound in WNC throughout the late summer and into the fall, and our business news in brief will keep you in the know.
On Aug. 13, the Planning & Economic Development Committee recommended that staff throw out the kitchen sink from the current definition. Council members Gwen Wisler, Vijay Kapoor and Julie Mayfield moved to adopt a new “maximum flexibility” definition for kitchen spaces.
Outside of the Olympics, the World Equestrian Games (which, like the Olympics, take place every four years) are the biggest competition in the world of horse-related sports. And this year, those games will take place in horse-crazy Tryon. Ironically, the only local resident competing will ride for his native Ecuador.
A local real estate company reports on the area’s hot real estate market, Asheville business folk meet and nonprofit Mountain BizWorks’ efforts get to promote diverse small business ownership get a big boost with a $650,000 funding commitment from Wells Fargo.
