Xpress sits down with the Tall John’s owner to chat about the unexpected popularity of beets, Asheville’s need for more Japanese cuisine and the pressing importance of choosing just the right bathroom wallpaper.
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Xpress sits down with the Tall John’s owner to chat about the unexpected popularity of beets, Asheville’s need for more Japanese cuisine and the pressing importance of choosing just the right bathroom wallpaper.
Hosted by Lenoir-Rhyne University April 12, the Sustainability Symposium featured six speakers from different areas of expertise in conservation, renewable energy, city planning and more.
“I have watched as the number of small and larger businesses have grown in the once-residential neighborhood. With that has come the frustration of chronic parking issues and escalating traffic volume.”
“Leaders shouldn’t be so focused on turning our area into an amusement park for those with disposable cash to drop on lodging and entertainment.”
“Isn’t this like telling a family of eight living in a two-room house that you’re persuading a couple of baseball teams to move in with them?”
How did Xpress readers process all the local news and changes this year? Here’s a look at the topics that generated the most commentaries, letters to the editor and online comments in Xpress in 2019.
“No one I know is against apartments. In fact, we have many on every block, and they are welcome neighbors.”
“Housing is in short supply and unaffordable. Rather than take an honest and comprehensive look at the issues, barriers and contributors to the problems, however, we in Asheville have smugly chosen the easy way out.”
“Many people come in and have an idea of what kind of house they want: an older home like a Victorian or Arts and Crafts, a bungalow, a ranch, midcentury modern, a fixer-upper, a new green build,” says Stephanie Cochran, a broker with Mosaic Realty. “In many towns that pinpoints the area where you will look. But in Asheville, so many neighborhoods have a mix of many if not all of those.”
Duke Energy has replaced 22 power poles in the downtown Asheville area with 100-foot-tall steel structures that can carry larger electrical loads.
Author and journalist Carol Polsgrove kicks off our series on urban rambles in Western North Carolina with a paean to her personal walking nirvana: Asheville’s Montford neighborhood.
The bus shelters, located at both the north-and southbound-stops on Montford Ave. and Cullowhee Street, feature doubled-sided panels that provide an overview of four distinct aspects of the neighborhood’s history.
Various tax credits and preservation easements offer financial benefits to owners of historic properties; advocates also tout broader benefits, such as job creation, the reduced environmental impacts of restoration versus demolition, and the intangible value of connecting the present with the past.
When the DOT finally decided on a design for Section B of the Connector project in 2015, many stakeholders thought they saw light at the end of a very long tunnel. Other residents, however, see serious flaws in Alternative 4B, questioning whether the project’s long-term benefits will justify the sacrifices their neighborhoods must make to see it completed.
“I am still stunned that Council has selected the highway with the largest footprint that will take the most land away from residential and business neighborhoods.”
“As a trailer dweller, I still have one big reason to be hopeful about Trump, which is that he will use the presidency to leverage zoning variances to build millions of high-rise apartments in liberal elite places like Montford, thus making the neighboring houses affordable to white workers like me; though to do that he will have to resist the blind trust.”
Formerly a Piggly Wiggly grocery store, then a church, the 100-year-old building that stands at the corner of Montford and Chestnut avenues is now an Italian restaurant owned by Robert and Melissa Willingham, career restaurateurs from Baltimore who moved to Asheville nearly four years ago.
The day-long free event boasts two stages, along with vendors, dancers, crafts and more. Photo by photobug_fred.
Asheville On Bike’s annual St.Patrick’s Day ride, The Bike of The Irish, drew a record number of participants in all shades of green and any description of bike.
A portion of the crowd that participated in The Bike of The Irish which went through Downtown, Montford, West Asheville, and the River Arts District today.(Photo by Bill Rhodes)
In this edition of the Mountain Xpress’ local news podcast, reporter David Forbes discusses the most recent Asheville City Council meeting, which covered the Occupy Asheville protest, a development in the Montford neighborhood and the rejection of bid by Ponderwell for the Community Media Development Initiative.
In your article about a Montford homeowner under attack by the city for having “too many people” [“Sustainable For Whom,” Nov. 17, Xpress), Assistant Planning Director Shannon Tuch says, “This is all based on life-safety requirements. When you have eight related people living in a house, there's a head of household … who would act […]