wednesday, april 10, 2019 flatiron building projectnc gop ... · 10.04.2019  · thomas a project...

ASHEVILLE – One more step.Plans to redevelop downtown Ashe-

ville’s historic Flatiron Building areheaded for final approval after passingthe latest test at the city’s Planning andZoning Commission on April 8.

Even amid continued criticism byneighbors and residents, the commis-sion in a 4-2 vote approved developerPhilip Woollcott’s plan for the nearlycentury old building at 20 Battery ParkAve.

Woollcott, an Asheville native nowliving in Charleston, South Carolina, hasproposed with building owner RussellThomas a project that converts the Flat-iron into an 80-room boutique hotelwith restaurants and a speakeasy bar.

Renderings show downtown Asheville’s Flatiron Building along Battery Park Avenue. PHOTOS COURTESY OF CITY OF ASHEVILLE

Amid criticism, commission advances plan with 4-2 vote

Developers have proposed converting the 93-year-old property into an80-room hotel.

Dillon Davis Asheville Citizen TimesUSA TODAY NETWORK

See FLATIRON, Page 4A

Flatiron Building projectnears final council vote

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RALEIGH – Several North CarolinaHouse Republicans who want to ex-pand Medicaid renewed their pitch onTuesday, now that the state legisla-ture’s changing political balance givesthe proposal more leverage.

Their bill seeks to expand Medicaidcoverage to more uninsured adultswho can’t otherwise qualify becausethey make too much money. It largelyfollows a 2017 proposal that peteredout due to opposition from GOP col-leagues.

But this year’s proposal should getmore attention because expansionsupporter Democratic Gov. Roy Cooperhas more negotiating power since hisparty gained legislative seats in No-vember.

Medicaid expansion could becomea linchpin of this year’s North Carolinalegislative session, especially if Coop-er threatens to veto any final state gov-ernment budget without it. More than35 states have expanded Medicaid eli-gibility in some form through the 2010federal health care overhaul.

“Certainly we know where the gov-ernor stands,” said Rep. Donny Lam-beth, a Forsyth County Republican andchief sponsor of the bill. “We know thegovernor will be part of these discus-sions at some point as we wrap up thebudget.”

Lambeth’s proposal could covermore than 540,000 people ages 19 to64 making no more than slightly abovethe federal poverty level. Slightly overhalf of those who could qualify don’thave insurance, according to figuresLambeth provided, meaning theywould be added to the Medicaid rolls.About 2 million people in North Caroli-na qualify for Medicaid.

House Democrats offered a bill inlate January that would have expand-ed Medicaid without any require-ments upon enrollees. Cooper spokes-man Ford Porter said Tuesday in anemail that work requirements and pre-miums “for the working poor createunnecessary barriers to coverage.” Al-though Senate Republicans remainstrongly opposed to expansion,

NC GOPpitchesMedicaidexpansionGary D. RobertsonASSOCIATED PRESS

See MEDICAID, Page 4A

4A ❚ WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2019 ❚ ASHEVILLE CITIZEN TIMES

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Woollcott and Thomas, as well as their attorney Wy-att Stevens, argue the project is essential in preservingthe aging structure. They say it’s not financially viableto make millions of dollars of necessary upgrades andalso keep it a hub for small businesses, as it has beenfor much of its history.

“It’s on par with the Grove Arcade building, it’s onpar with this building (Asheville City Hall) and it’s oneof those pieces of public art that makes Asheville whatit is,” Stevens said at the April 8 meeting.

“We firmly believe the only way to save this buildingis through this project.”

Project had city staff backingThe project came to Planning and Zoning without

full support from the city’s planning staff, which notedit makes “necessary and high quality upgrades to thisiconic historic structure.” But they also have concernsabout the lack of identified off-site parking for guestsand employees, about displacing some 80 small-busi-ness tenants from the building and about the volumeof existing hotels near the Flaitron property.

The staff report shows if it were to be approved, it’sin the public interest because of the historic rehabilita-tion effort and due to proposed streetscape enhance-ments — including widening the sidewalk and shiftingover a public crosswalk — on Battery Park Avenue.

“There’s high-quality and necessary upgrades tothis building, but there are concerns about potentialcompatibility impacts,” city urban planner JessicaBernstein said.

Stevens swatted down concerns about dislocatingtenants, offering up some 88,000 square feet of com-parable office space downtown, including within thehistoric Jackson Building in Pack Square. He said dis-placed tenants, most of whom are there on a month-to-month basis, will receive a check from the devel-oper for their rent based on how long the business hasbeen in the Flatiron.

If it’s three months, “they get a check for threemonths’ rent,” he said.

The group also trotted out a nearly seven-minutevideo — complete with drone footage of the buildingand upbeat music blaring — featuring Woollcott,Thomas and about a half-dozen supporters of the ef-fort. It includes Jack Thomson, executive director ofthe Preservation Society of Asheville and BuncombeCounty, who noted the project’s importance in lendingthe property a new lease on life.

“We don’t want these buildings to die a death of athousand cuts,” Thomson said.

But like with earlier stops in the development proc-ess, the effort has its opponents. Of the 15 people tospeak during public comment, most were against it orotherwise expressed concerns about aspects of thedevelopment.

Asheville resident Rik Schell, of Purl’s YarnEmporium on Wall Street, argued the city must domore to bring locals downtown instead of passinglodging proposals he says are for tourists.

“One hotel is not the problem; we need to do thehard work and look at the bigger solutions,” Schellsaid. “When they tell you this is the only solution andthere’s no other way of doing it, they’re coming in withtheir thousand-dollar suits and thousand-dollarvideos and giving you the snow job.”

Schell briefly shouted at the commission at the con-clusion of the meeting for what he saw as catering todevelopment interests rather than the needs of thecommunity.

But it also saw some support from Stephen West,owner of the neighboring Miles Building; Ashevilleresident Karen Ramshaw and local historian and WallStreet business owner Kevan Frazier.

Ramshaw recalled for the commission the early1980s effort to shut down a mall proposal that wasplanned for downtown, an effort that would have im-pacted the area around Lexington Park. She said thatwas an important defense of the city’s heritage —which, like the Flatiron Building project, “protects ourhistory.”

“We here in Asheville are at risk of believing ourown press in thinking we can hold out for somethingbetter, undefined as that is,” she said. “The reality isthere’s not a huge subset of developers willing or capa-ble to take on a preservation project like this one.

“Kicking the can down the road is likely to put thisbuilding on ice for a decade, and time is not this build-ing’s friend.”

Will Asheville City Council OK the plan?

The Flatiron’s prospects of passing at City Councilwould seem to have improved in recent months. Inconsecutive meetings in March, council narrowly ap-proved two new hotels on the city’s South Slope: a 103-room Extended Stay Hotel at 324 Biltmore Ave. andFamily Lodge, a 56-room hotel and mixed-usedevelopment at 155 Biltmore Ave.

The process has become increasingly difficult forhoteliers dating back to an Oct. 23 meeting, during

which several members voiced concerns about thepace of lodging development in Asheville. Some in-cluding Mayor Esther Manheimer and CouncilmanBrian Haynes argued development was coming at theexpense of greater needs in the community such asaffordable housing or infrastructure upgrades.

In October, Haynes effectively called for a morato-rium on approving hotels. He hasn’t voted for onesince.

But in the days following that meeting, the Bun-combe County Tourism Development Authority,which manages some $23 million in annual hotel oc-cupancy taxes, voted to temporarily suspend itsTourism Product Development Fund grant cycle. Theboard since hired a consultant group to lay thegroundwork for the next decade of investments fromthe TPDF, in ways area tourism leaders say would bemore strategic to meet local needs.

In the past two decades, the TPDF has awarded$44 million to 39 projects, including multiple invest-ments to the John B. Lewis Soccer Complex, PackSquare Park and the U.S. Cellular Center in down-town Asheville.

Both hotels approved in March passed on 4-3votes. With Haynes, Vice Mayor Gwen Wisler votedagainst both. Council members Keith Young and She-neika Smith voted for one apiece. Manheimer andmembers Julie Mayfield and Vijay Kapoor approvedboth.

Young said he’s now reserving his yes vote for de-velopers willing to do more than build hotel rooms.

“I would like to see more developers working inand out of the city providing more affordable hous-ing, working with the city and understanding theneeds of the community and not just taking away,” hesaid.

The last hotel approved before the temporarystoppage in October was a 106-room Mainstay Suitesat 511 Brevard Road, which came on a 4-2 vote — withKapoor absent — from a meeting earlier that month.

In a gathering Monday at Jack of the Wood, the Flatiron Building’s primary owner Russell Thomas told agroup of tenants that the building requires about $3.5 million in upgrades. ANGELA WILHELM/CITIZEN TIMES

FlatironContinued from Page 1A

Lambeth’s measure, could serve as a roadmap to-ward a bipartisan compromise.

Lambeth, a former hospital executive, and otherGOP sponsors are taking a different tack than mostGOP leaders, arguing the benefits of federal Medicaidfunds untouched for years are too great to pass up.Still, they tried to distance their plan from traditionalexpansion, calling it simply “NC Health Care forWorking Families.”

The bill sponsors also agree with several lobbyinggroups, including the state’s hospital association,which said it will create health care jobs, counteropioid addiction and reduce infant mortality by cov-ering women of child-bearing years.

“The greatest opportunities to improve the healthof a woman and her child during pregnancy occur be-fore she becomes pregnant,” said Michaela Penixwith the North Carolina March of Dimes.

Like the 2017 proposal, enrollees would have topay monthly premiums equal to 2% of their incomeand either work or participate in job-training pro-grams.

North Carolina taxpayers wouldn’t directly pay thelocal 10% share of the program’s overall annual costof more than $4.7 billion.

Rather, it would be covered largely by assess-ments, or taxes that hospitals and health care provid-ers would be required to pay. Responding to criticswho said the state could ultimately get stuck with thebill, Lambeth said the measure would cancel expand-ed coverage should the federal government stop pay-ing less than a 90% share.

Senate Republicans remain skeptical, noting thatPresident Donald Trump last month proposed doingaway with it and sending Medicaid money to thestates in block grants.

Senate GOP members have instead offered severalother proposals to expand health care access. A mea-sure scheduled for committee debate Wednesdayproposes spending to cover more people with devel-opmental disabilities and repealing certificate ofneed laws.

“With the current state of the federal govern-ment’s fiscal health, paying for 90% of Medicaid ex-pansion is unsustainable,” Senate leader Phil Berger,a Rockingham County Republican said recently in anews release.

Lambeth’s bill would include one new initiative: arural health grant program that could set aside tensof millions of dollars annually toward recruiting andretaining doctors, expanding telemedicine and men-tal health services and other efforts. The moneywould be paid through a new tax upon managed-caregroups who will soon care for most of the state’s Me-dicaid patients.

House Republican leaders are lukewarm at best tothe expansion idea. Lambeth said he has spoken toSpeaker Tim Moore and Majority Leader John Bellabout it.

MedicaidContinued from Page 1