The Charlotte Observer, N.C., Doug Smith Column: Go West, Then Up
By Doug Smith, The Charlotte Observer, N.C.
Jan. 17–DEVELOPMENT Asheville is a poplar mountain retreat for tourists, but today that’s just part of the attraction.
Real estate developers, including most recently Harris, Murr & Vermillion, are discovering Next Big Thing opportunities in Western North Carolina.
The Charlotte firm is developing Asheville’s highest elevation gated community: 215 single-family houses and 90 townhomes on the south face of 3,950-foot Cedar Cliff Mountain.
The project — Southcliff — totals 406 acres and is under construction off U.S. 74A in Buncombe County’s Fairview community, about seven miles southeast of downtown Asheville.
Houses — including estate homes near the peak — are expected to sell from the low $400,000s to $3 million or more. The first townhomes will be priced in the $700,000s.
A residential development of such magnitude seems out of character for a real estate company perhaps best known in Charlotte for its revitalization efforts in South End.
But when you see opportunity, it’s hard to look the other way.
“Asheville is the Charleston of Western North Carolina,” said partner Steve Vermillion.
Visitors often cite the city’s eclectic shops, excellent restaurants, sense of history and artsy-funky downtown charm.
“There are few areas where you can live in a mountain home and be so close to all the amenities,” Vermillion said. “It’s fertile ground for developers.”
Partner Eric Nichols, Harris, Murr & Vermillion’s lead developer on the estimated $275 million project, said Asheville offers residents “the full city experience,” with arts, theater, good medical care and good schools.
He said that like Charleston about 10 or 15 years ago, Asheville is opening up to outside developers as it experiences both retail and residential growth.
Nichols gets no argument from Tom Tveidt, the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce’s research director.
“It used to be I would hear from maybe one developer a week; now it’s up to one or two a day,” he said.
During his eight years there, Tveidt has documented Asheville’s steady population and economic growth.
The unemployment rate is in the 3 percent range as tourism/hospitality, health care and professional/business services industries generate jobs.
Asheville is relatively small but still urban, he said, with 70,000 people in the city and 400,000 in the metro area.
One of the advantages newcomers notice, Tveidt said, is that “you can be in the mountains in 15 or 20 minutes.”
Location certainly is a selling point at Southcliff, which will offer home owners panoramic views of Mount Mitchell, Little and Big Pisgah, Hickory Nut Gap and Bearwallow Mountain.
With a focus on nature, the community will include 195 acres for outdoor activities and campgrounds. It will have seven miles of hiking trails, green spaces, four parks, an open-air pavilion and a family camp.
The developers expect Southcliff to appeal to full-time residents and second-home buyers.
As part of the project, Harris, Murr & Vermillion plans to develop a 100,000-square-foot retail center later on 15 acres.
Actually, the retail potential of the location is what caught the company’s eye initially.
Nichols, who was scouting retail sites in Western North Carolina, got a tip from a broker that the tract was on the market.
He took the firm’s principals on a tour of the site, and they liked it so much they bought it within a couple of weeks.
They spent about 2 1/2 years planning and preparing for construction. They didn’t need a rezoning, because Buncombe County, unlike Asheville, doesn’t have zoning.
Mountain dwellers are protective of their views and reluctant to support development that changes the landscape.
Some neighbors in fast-growing Fairview did express concerns in newspaper interviews about the potential impact of more people and heavier traffic on property and wildlife.
Nichols pledged to preserve much of the natural beauty.
The peaks and valleys of Western North Carolina aren’t as conducive to the type of large-scale development occurring in the Piedmont, and that’s one reason developers have been slow to venture west.
“It is more difficult because of the terrain,” Nichols said. “We’re building nine miles of roads up a mountain.”
Constructing a system of pumping stations to get city water up the mountainside will be an engineering feat, he said.
Nichols said Harris, Murr and Vermillion is relying on Asheville-area engineering and consulting companies experienced in such projects.
With family ties and a personal interest in Western North Carolina, he said he expects to spend considerable time ferreting out opportunities there.
Already, he said, Harris, Murr and Vermillion is in a joint venture with Granite Development on a 480,000-square-foot shopping center off Interstate 26 in Weaverville, about 11 miles north of Asheville.
Nichols said the developers assembled the 85-acre tract for Northridge Commons by purchasing land from 18 separate property owners.
The $45 million project, to include a Wal-Mart, a Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse and four junior anchors, is to open in summer 2008.
The developers did face a rezoning battle there.
Harris, Murr & Vermillion isn’t the first Charlotte developer to capitalize on growth in Western North Carolina.
Last year, Crosland Inc. teamed with Biltmore Farms LLC to develop 42-acre Town Square Park at Biltmore Park, Asheville’s first suburban mixed-use development.
DEVELOPMENT
Southcliff Overview
–Size: 406 acres to be developed with 215 single-family lots and 90 townhomes in 10 neighborhoods.–Construction: Site work is under way. First houses are to be completed by fall.
–Builders: Longmeadow Homes plans mid-$400,000 to low-$600,000 homes on 41 lots. My Biltmore Home plans low-$400,000 to mid-$400,000 homes on 50 lots.
–Future development: Harris, Murr & Vermillion is selling lots — mostly 3/4-acre but some as large as 4 acres — for $200,000 to $1 million-plus.
The first townhome phase will include 14 units selling for $700,000 and up.
A 100,000-square-foot retail center will be developed later.
–Sales: Asheville’s Beverly-Hanks & Associates will host a grand opening at the site from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Feb. 25.
On Feb. 1, Charlotte’s Dickens Mitchener & Associates is hosting an invitation-only open house from 5 p.m.- 7 p.m. at the Duke Mansion, 400 Hermitage Road.
Information: www.southcliffasheville.com .
Cedar Cliff Mountain
The Southcliff residential development will overlook the site off old Drovers Road, a historic trading route farmers used to drive cattle and livestock to market.
The tract, on the south face of the mountain, once was known as Hope Dairy, a small farm that operated there in the 1940s and ’50s.
In 1963, Asheville businessman Harry Bloomberg bought and preserved the property in its natural state.
About 40 years later, his daughters sold the property to Harris, Murr & Vermillion.
Close to Nature
Developers plan to build houses among the trees they preserve in Southcliff and include about seven miles of nature trails, four parks, an open-air pavilion and a family camp for residents. Doug Smith
Doug Smith: 704-358-5174; dougsmith@charlotteobserver.com
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Charlotte Observer, N.C.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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