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Biltmore Park Town Square is a construction zone today with stores, condos, apartments and parking decks rising from the George Vanderbilt family's former dairy land.
But by late next summer, this will be Asheville's Next Big Thing – a commercial and residential hub similar to Birkdale Village in Huntersville.
Asheville's Biltmore Farms LLC is teaming with Charlotte's Crosland LLC on the $200 million, 42-acre mixed-use development at Interstate 26 and Long Shoals Road, about four miles south of Biltmore Estate.
The initial specialty shops, offices and YMCA are open, but the big surge is just beginning.
“Right now, we are probably a third of the way through,” said Biltmore Farms President Jack Cecil, George Vanderbilt's great-grandson. “Once the large retailers committed to the geographic area, we had to go all at once.”
The first big national retailer – outdoor gear supplier REI – plans to open a two-story, 29,000-square-foot store Friday. It will be followed next month by a Regal Cinemas 15-screen stadium seat theater.
Town Square's 285,000 square feet of specialty retail and restaurant space is 55 percent leased, including tenants Barnes & Noble (opening in late spring) and restaurants P.F. Chang's China Bistro (January), Brixx Wood Fired Pizza (January) and 131 Main (spring), said Crosland's James Downs, vice president-retail division.
The University of Phoenix anticipates opening a branch there by January, and a 165-room Hilton hotel is coming by late spring.
“There has been no critical mass of retail like this since Asheville Mall was developed in the 1980s,” said Paul Szurek, Biltmore Farms' chief financial officer.
Similar to Birkdale Village, the project's apartments and townhomes will wrap parking decks and be constructed on top of retail stores and restaurants along a main street to create an urban village.
Town Square is about 10 acres smaller than Birkdale Village, but denser with 2,700 parking spaces in four decks compared with about 620 spaces in four decks at Birkdale.
By building upward and stacking residences and offices over shops, Town Square is preserving about 25 acres that otherwise would have been developed, Szurek said.
The first 73 condos of the project's 156 condos and townhomes went on sale Sept. 21. Eight have sold for prices ranging from the mid-$200,000s to the mid-$400,000s.
Cecil concedes this isn't the best time to be selling housing, but he believes Asheville's appeal as a tourist destination and second home market will help.
In fact, a former Charlotte couple now living in Florida were among the visitors checking out floor plans in the sales center last weekend.
The developers say financing isn't a concern, because Town Square secured its money about two years ago. But leasing and sales could be better.
“The economy is slower than when we started,” Cecil said. “But building in a downturn is advantageous, because in theory when we come out, the economy will be expanding again.”
Town Square will have office and retail space available, he said, as companies look to secure expansion sites for 2009 and 2010.
“There are not many mixed-use urban centers like this under way in the country now,” Cecil said.
Volvo Construction Equipment's North American Headquarters opened in the neighboring corporate office section of Town Square in 1999. The first shops opened in 2000, and a YMCA followed in 2003.
The mix of office, retail and residential is creating what CFO Szurek describes as “a replica of downtown Asheville but with a modern interpretation.”
The mountain city of Asheville, with more than 72,000 people and an artsy downtown, is about 100 miles west of Charlotte and is in one of the fastest-growing areas of western North Carolina.
Town Square is roughly between Asheville and 12,000-population Hendersonville and convenient to Brevard and Waynesville.
Accessibility will improve for motorists by late 2009 or early 2010, when the state completes construction of a redesigned I-26-Long Shoals Road interchange, Cecil said.
The developers estimate about 4,000 families live near Town Square and would use its shops and services.
Residents of the village will be able to work, shop, dine and live in the self-contained community, which will have pedestrian links to walking trails in the surrounding neighborhoods.
Town Square was designed by Charlotte's Shook Kelley, which also did the master plan for Birkdale Village.
Szurek said an apartment complex Biltmore Farms completed earlier near Town Square stays leased, an indicator that “people want to be close to this type of development.”
And Cecil points out: More than 9,000 people use Town Square's YMCA, which has views of the mountains from its second-floor exercise equipment.
Doug Smith: 704-358-5174; dougsmith@charlotteobserver.com
