AVL project tracker: Asheville fire station, Grant Center pool, condo building in the works
AVL project tracker: Asheville fire station, Grant Center pool, condo building in the works
The new fire station will include a police sub-station and emergency ops center
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Here’s a quick look at three projects that are progressing around Asheville:
Asheville Fire Station No. 13
The Asheville Fire Department’s newest fire station has been fully designed and should be under construction by this summer. It’s estimated to cost taxpayers about $3.5 million.
Charlotte-based ADW Architects designed the building to be built at 316 Broadway Street near the intersection of Broadway and Mount Clare Avenue. Check out their architectural renderings. The building is impressive. (Background on early fire station designs here.)
The station features three fire truck bays, a police sub-station, an emergency operations center and a community conference room. The city, which bought the land here in 2010, will be going for a LEED Silver green building certification. A solar panel installation is planned.
The location for the station will help the Fire Department improve response times to areas north of downtown, specifically the Five Points, Montford, UNC Asheville, and Richmond Hill communities.
An emergency light to be installed along Broadway will stop traffic as vehicles leave the station. There will be a high-visibility crosswalk and pedestrian signals, similar to the ones recently installed on Charlotte Street, near Magnolia Avenue.
New pool at Wesley Grant Sr. Southside Center
The city is moving ahead with its plans for a major expansion of the Wesley Grant Sr. Southside Center on Livingston Street that will include a new pool and basketball courts. Construction is tentatively scheduled to start in late summer or fall.
Plans call for 7,385 square feet of new outdoor space, including the pool and basketball court. Some 13,230 square feet of indoor space will also include a basketball court. When complete, a solar panel installation on the new gymnasium building roof will be the largest solar panel installation on an Asheville city-owned building.
The Asheville Riverfront Redevelopment Commission reviewed the construction plans earlier this year. The plans have come together in the wake of Asheville City Council’s decision late last year to eventually close its Walton Street Pool facility. (The city intends to keep Walton Street Pool open until the new pool is built, a city spokesman told the redevelopment commission.)
These additions will cost about $4 million in Asheville taxpayer money. City voters approved the spending when they voted to pass a bond project package back in 2016.
272 Biltmore Avenue condo building
A new 5-story, 49-unit condo building planned at 272 Biltmore Ave. was reviewed this week by the Asheville Technical Review Committee.
The committee looked over construction details: the 10-foot sidewalk and street tree plantings that will be required; a 15-foot landscape buffer at the rear of the building; and the building height, which comes in at just over 60 feet tall.
Residents of the Oakhurst neighborhood have expressed concerns about the building height, as well as associated noise, light and parking issues. A small rooftop terrace will sit atop the structure, as will several small, standard residential air conditioning units, the committee was told. Discussions between representatives for the neighborhood and the developer are ongoing.
The condo building will be built on property that’s home to a now-closed construction business. It’s located in a section of Biltmore Avenue that’s currently seeing a lot of construction activity. The new Lee Walker Heights public housing project is under construction across the street. In a lot just south of the new condo building, a new hotel is set to be constructed.
The condos, which I’ve seen listed for about $400,000, are being marketed as an “affluent condominium community” that offers parking, spacious balconies and quick, easy access to a collection of the city’s “finest coffee shops, restaurants, art galleries, breweries and live music venues” over on the South Slope.
Project details: owner is Rival Properties LLC; civil engineer is Asheville’s Civil Design Concepts; architect is Charlotte-based Intec Group Inc.