News

Developer seeks city rezoning for 288 multi-family dwellings

A developer is seeking rezoning to permit apartments on a 27-acre tract of land on Upward Road, part of which is currently a tomato field. [COLTRANE HUTCHINS/Hendersonville Lightning]

By Bill Moss, Published: September 24, 2026

A developer is seeking approval from the city of Hendersonville for a rezoning that would allow construction of a 288-unit multi-family complex on 27 acres on Upward Road near I-26.

A Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina-based architectural-engineering firm, is seeking a rezoning from Henderson County's Regional Commercial zone to the city's Commercial Highway Mixed Use Conditional Zoning District, indicating that the landowner plans to seek annexation into the city in order to receive sewer service.

The application was submitted by Shawn Sanes, a senior landscape architect and project manager  in the Asheville office of SeamonWhiteside, which has eight offices in the Carolinas.

City planners scheduled a neighborhood compatibility meeting on the project for 2 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 29, in the second floor meeting room of City Hall, 160 Sixth Ave. E.

The land is currently owned by the Brian James Easler Trust and trustees Jewel Jacobs Easler and Brent Easler, the late Toyota dealer's widow and son. It's valued on the tax books at $3,892,700. Online real estate services for commercial land sales show that the vacant business-zoned property is under contract for $7.9 million. Brent Easler on Thursday confirmed a conditional sale was in the works depending on development approval. He referred other questions to real estate broker David Lee, who did not immediately return the Lightning's call seeking information.

A request for a change from county to city zoning typically indicates that the landowner intends to agree to annexation in order to receive city sewer service, as city policy requires.

A pitch for the sale described the vacant commercial property as an "exceptional large-scale development opportunity" with a quarter-mile of frontage on Upward Road, close proximity to I-26 and "outstanding visibility, accessibility and connectivity within the highly desirable South Asheville-Hendersonville growth corridor."

The Upward Road area in recent years has been ground-zero of a apartment construction boom and jobs, with numerous complexes opening on South Allen Road and the new Jabil plant in Garrison Industrial Park atop a hill northeast of the Easler property.