Downtown doesn’t need another hotel

Right now, Asheville city officials have on the table two bids to purchase the city-owned property on Haywood Street across from the Basilica of St. Lawrence. One bid is from McKibbon Hotel Group who wants to build a hotel at that site. The other bid is from the Catholic Church (Diocese of Charlotte) which hopes […]

City will bring forward hotel offer on Haywood St. properties in March

The city of Asheville will examine an offer from McKibbon hotel group for property near the Basilica of St. Lawrence, city staff said at a meeting of City Council’s Planning and Economic Development Committee today, and bring forward more information in March. However, Council members are far from set on the hotel plans: one called the city’s approach “testing the waters.” Photo by Bill Rhodes.

Green downtown Asheville

It has come to my attention that the McKibben Group is interested in purchasing several city-owned pieces of property around the Basilica of St. Lawrence in order to construct a high-rise hotel. The church itself has offered to purchase the property in order to avoid this construction, which is preferable to the alternative, but perhaps […]

Rhapsody in midnight MacLeod

I sometimes pen pages while my baby sleeps, but during my entire pregnancy I did not write at all, save for one short poem. It was October, and I was working as a hostess at The Market Place almost every night. It was grueling in the belly of the kitchen. The pace was hectic; we […]

The Gospel According to Jerry

An expert is a person from more than 50 miles away with a briefcase. Recently the city of Asheville hired a group of experts called Goody Clancy all the way from Boston, Mass., to tell us what we should do with our downtown in order to appease our no-growth activists. It seems like we go […]