Business

Year in Review Business: Health care, bank shares and craft beer

UNC Health Care CEO Gary Park, county commission Chairman Charlie Messer and Pardee board Chairman Bill Moyer announced a new Pardee-UNC agreement.

By Bill Moss, Published: January 2, 2014

In health care the fight for market share continued in Henderson County.

Mission and Pardee hospitals opened their joint Health Campus on the county line in Fletcher. Urgent care visits in the fourth quarter of 2013 were running ahead of budget.
Pardee also strengthened its management partnership with UNC Health Care and got the green light from the county Board of Commissioners to enter into joint ventures with other providers. Pardee has formed partnerships with Blue Ridge Community Health Services and Mountain Area Health Education Center to expand care and train doctors.
Park Ridge counterpunched with a new $10 million medical center in Arden.
Park Ridge Health at Biltmore Park will house 16 physicians in a four-story 25,000-square-foot medical center that will offer primary care and secondary care through specialties that include cardiology, endocrinology, nephrology, rheumatology, allergy and immunology, neurology, and obstetrics and gynecology.

Mountain 1st

In business, the biggest news affecting local investors was the sale of Mountain 1st Bank to First Citizens Bank and the drop in the local bank's value during a nine-year roller coaster ride.
Shareholders approved the sale 2.8 million to 786,000. A shareholders meeting at BRCC on Dec. 10 attracted disgruntled investors who questioned Mountain 1st executives. After the meeting, they gathered in the parking lot to talk about a possible class action lawsuit.
"A lot of charges were made about people running off with all the money," said Reg Smith, one of the investors. "There's a lot deceit. The bottom line is there's going to be a class-action lawsuit."
Mountain 1st President Vince Rees said the Hendersonville bank had followed all regulations and laws.
"I don't know what the basis to the class action lawsuit would be but I certainly feel like we did the appropriate things, the board took the appropriate steps, hired the appropriate professionals, followed the appropriate protocols and did it to a T," he said.
In happier business news, Boyd Chevrolet moved to a new showroom on Spartanburg Highway after 81 years at Five Points.
"Five years ago, nobody would have ever thought that the car business would be where it is today," said L.C. "Les" Boyd III, the third generation owner of the family owned company.

In Mills River, Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. was test brewing its Stout, Pale Ale and Torpedo Extra IPA as the year closed.
"We're not to the point of having salable beer but our hope is early in 2014 it will be ready to roll," said Ryan Arnold, Sierra Nevada's communications manager. "We'll continue to grow the staff a little bit. We've hired about 65 folks full time. Our projection is we'll have between 80 and 100 fulltime jobs and 40 to 60 part-time in the summer for the tap room and restaurant and a team that does brewery tours."
The company plans to produce initially 300,000 to 350,000 barrels a year at the Mills River plant. (300,000 barrels would be 49,600,000 12-ounce beers.) The home office of Chico, Calif., needs the relief. The brew house there is producing close to 1 million barrels and would be more comfortable producing about 750,000, Arnold said.