When Sarah Easterling was pregnant with her first child 11 years ago, she was determined to find the purest products available to clothe and care for her son. “Infants, their bodies are are so small and they’re so vulnerable,” she says. “They are already subjected to so much. I felt like as much as I […]
The Downtown Holiday Windows Contest, held by the Asheville Downtown Association, features an annual theme: this year’s is “Light up the holidays.”
Asheville city staffers, downtown stakeholders and local buskers turned out in force for the city’s monthly Public Safety Committee meeting Wednesday afternoon to discuss a city proposal for a pilot program regulating downtown public space. The meeting, which was preceded by a community forum with downtown stakeholders, came amid tensions over pilot program, which would add regulations to several […]
Walk any downtown Asheville street and you’re likely to encounter some quirky storefronts offering unusual products. Together, these “specialty shops” or boutiques, most of them locally owned businesses, are a key component of the city’s distinctive flavor, attracting thousands of tourists each year and helping fuel the economy.
Local business owners have banded together under the mantra UnChain Asheville in an attempt to sway the public toward shopping with small businesses rather than chains.
Here’s a video of the Spiritex solar-powered T-shirt cart, which can be found on the corner of Patton and Biltmore avenues in downtown Asheville. Spiritex sells locally made organic T-shirts; the cart is out on weekends, Mondays and other select dates. Conceived and designed by Spiritex employee Derek Sanders, the cart sports a rooftop solar setup that charges a battery for powering its evening lights and a small fan that keeps staff cool during the day. The custom-built cart also is composed of more than 60 percent recycled and salvaged materials.
