News

Retail, mixed use and residential pick up

A developer has applied for a permit to build a Dollar General on Brookside Camp Road at Howard Gap Road.

By Bill Moss, Published: January 8, 2017

As the new year dawns, housing inventory is dropping and Henderson County planners are seeing an uptick in requests for residential and commercial development.

Several hundred new homes may sprout up over the coming months if developers follow through on plans they have announced or submitted.
Although the Board of Commissioners turned down an innovative mixed-use development for the Horse Shoe Farm property on South Rugby Road in December, developer John Turchin says he plans to submit a new plan. Based on the current zoning, Turchin could build as many as 206 apartments.
“I do think they will come back with another plan that’s going to be worse for the neighbors,” said Steve Dozier, chair of the county Planning Board, which unanimously recommended approval of the development. “They can be apartments and that will mean more traffic and more turnover than what this thing was going to be.”

Dollar General on Brookside Camp

Smaller subdivisions have won the approval of county planners or in the works in the Fletcher area and in the Crab Creek community. And this week a Huntsville, Ala.-based developer sought approval from county planners for a Dollar General store on Brookside Camp Road at Howard Gap Road. The store would be on a 1.7-acre parcel owned by Richard Leon Lamb and valued on the tax rolls at $50,100.
The property currently contains a house and commercial storage building and is surrounded by mixed residential and commercial uses. The county’s land-use plan designates that corner for “intensive, efficient” concentrations of services that serve the surrounding area. Planners recommended approval of the development request, which was to be considered by the technical review committee on Tuesday.
When the Horse Shoe Farm development came up last fall, John Mitchell, the county’s director of Business and Community Development, noted that the proposal was the first major mixed-use development since the recession. He’s seen an increase in development activity in recent months.
“County staff has met with a number of interested parties about large tracts of land” that could be the site of new subdivisions, he said. “In the four years I’ve been here this is the most activity we’ve had.”
Homebuyers in 2016 made a deep dent in the inventory of existing homes, said Dozier, who is a real estate agent with Beverly-Hanks & Associates.
Although a slight uptick in interest rates could slow momentum, he expects the real estate market to remain strong.
“Our inventory is extremely low right now and probably will continue to be through late February or early March,” he said. “Anything less than $300,000 is selling almost right away. I do expect to see new development requests coming before the Planning Board.”
Windsor Built homes of Greenville, S.C., is adding 12 lots next to its Riverstone development and a Mills River developer plans to build 21 cottages on a 19-acre tract on Patty’s Chapel Road.

Although his company does more remodeling than new construction, Andrew Riddle of Riddle Construction says the business has clearly recovered from the low point of the 2007 recession.
“We’ve got everything from commercial jobs in the city of Asheville to a $300,000 addition in Black Mountain to an $80,000 what I call a ‘garage Mahal’ in Brevard to a screen porch addition in Wilson Farm,” he said. “We’re getting into the niche of being a remodeling specialist. It just seems like the more difficult job the better we are at it. That’s where we excel.”

Bidding war for Sixth Avenue property

In the city, the Sixth Avenue corridor could be the next hot market.
Hundreds of students per day are going in and out of the Wingate and Blue Ridge Community College and patients and their families are visiting the new Pardee Cancer Center. All the activity makes for a tempting market for development of shops and dining or housing, real estate agents say.
Leon Elliston, an allergy doctor, offered Henderson County $172,000 for the old Sixth Avenue Clubhouse property at 714 Sixth Avenue West. Last week, Lemuel Oates, the owner of Manual Woodworkers and Burntshirt Vineyards and a commercial real estate investor, submitted an upset bid of $180,650 — the minimum allowed under the law. That amount is itself subject to upset bids, which must be submitted by Jan. 17.
Meanwhile down the block, owner Lisa Lewis Presley sold the former Two Guys property at 646 Sixth Avenue West for $375,000 to Albert M. Iosue, an investor in Etowah.
Iosue said he has no firm plans at the moment.
“My son Nick is sort of running the project,” he said, referring to Nick Iosue, branch manager of Entegra Bank in Brevard. “We’re thinking about several options but nothing hard and concrete at the moment.”
The property next door to the old Two Guys location is also for sale.
Dozier says it’s only a matter of time before the newly bustling Sixth Avenue corridor develops.
“Something’s going to happen around Wingate,” he said. “There’s got to be some high density housing somewhere with all the activity at Wingate and what Pardee’s doing and Blue Ridge Community College, too.”