This document contains a detailed timeline of advocacy, research, and historical context on this issue. To see our most recent report and call to action, click here.

Summary (updated 3/26/26): City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday, March 24, to place a two-year land hold on the “Parkside” parcels to explore the building of a downtown performing arts center in Asheville. Importantly, the final approved version of the resolution stipulates that the City will “create and utilize, as part of this process, meaningful and robust partnerships [emphasis added] with the surrounding communities, including but not limited to the Block and East End.” Read our full update here. You can also read our three-part special report on this site here.

Update 3/23/26: City Council will vote Tuesday, March 24th on whether to place a two-year land hold on the “Parkside” parcels to explore a downtown performing arts center. Community members have not asked the City to stop exploring the idea — they’ve asked for a formal commitment that representatives from The Block and East End community will help shape the project from the beginning. The materials released by the City describe outreach and feasibility work, but they do not guarantee shared decision-making. We are urging City Council to approve the land hold only if it includes a binding commitment to bring a community-rooted partner into the project structure.

Updated 3/22/26: We’ve published all three installments of a three-part Special Report: Before Parkside: An Active Eagle Street Community. The series explores what was happening on this site before it became a parking lot where the City might build a performing arts center. We think this history matters, because the decisions being made about this site today are not happening in a vacuum, and plans should not move forward without meaningful participation from the communities most connected to this place. Click here to read our introduction, and then check out Part 1 of the series: Who lived on this land before it became a parking lot? Then you can read Part 2: how did the city acquire this land?. Part 3: Who decides what happens next is here.

Update 3/18/26: The People’s Place and JD Ellison and Company have prepared a report on last week’s community meeting, which you can read here. Please check out our email template below for engaging City Council on this issue.

Update 3/16/26: More than 50 community members gathered at the YMI Cultural Center on March 11th to discuss the City’s proposal to build a new performing arts center on The Block. Most attendees were against the idea and also mistrustful of how the process was likely to unfold. It was clear that much more community engagement would be needed before the City moves forward with plans that could significantly reshape this historic area.

It was also clear that the communities closest to the site – The Block and the East End / Valley Street neighborhoods – must have a central seat at the table as discussions move forward. These communities have deep historical ties to the area and would be directly affected by any major development.

For this reason, we are calling on Asheville City Council to make a formal public commitment to establishing neighborhood representation in any future negotiations or planning related to the so-called “Parkside” site. If the City chooses to move forward with its proposal to hold the land for future development, it should only do so if this commitment is adopted at the same time.

We have updated our email template below to convey this message, and encourage you to use it to contact City Council today.

Update 3/9/26: There is still time to email City Council about this issue before they vote on it on March 24th (please see the template we’ve included below and send it to the Council if you haven’t already). Local community members and allies will also be meeting about this issue on Wednesday, March 11. (Learn more at https://peoplesplaceavl.com/civic-engagement).

Update 3/2/26: City Council is at a decision point. A vote to hold the “Parkside site” is not a final approval, but it signals intent and begins formal negotiations. Once negotiations begin, leverage shifts. Conditions that are not established early become harder to secure later.

City staff are asking City Council to continue holding approximately 2.4 acres of City-owned land downtown for a potential arts and entertainment complex. The site is located on Eagle Street in The Block, Asheville’s historic Black business district, and is therefore near areas deeply affected by urban renewal and near historic Black institutions. While the project is still exploratory, decisions made now will shape what feels possible later. Large civic developments like this one on public land can significantly affect surrounding property values, small businesses, and housing costs – all of which have displacement implications. Given Asheville’s history of urban renewal and racialized displacement, early guardrails are critical.

The facts (updated 3/23/26): City Council is being asked to approve a resolution authorizing a two-year land hold on the “Parkside” parcels. The purpose of the land hold is to preserve the option of building a downtown performing arts center while the City conducts feasibility work and explores partnerships.

According to staff materials, the land hold period would be used to:

• Conduct feasibility and financial analysis=
• Explore operating partnerships
• Engage stakeholders and the community
• Refine potential site concepts
• Evaluate funding options

Staff is recommending approval of the land hold so that these discussions can proceed while the City maintains control of the site.

Importantly, the proposed action does not approve construction or funding. It does, however, establish the framework and timeline for how decisions about the project will be shaped.

You can read the staff report here and see the presentation slides here.

Original: City Council will receive a report on a proposed “land hold” at their February 24th Briefing. The City owns approximately 2.4 acres of land downtown between Eagle and Marjorie Streets that has been referred to as the “Parkside” site. City staff are asking Council to continue holding this land while they further explore the possibility of a public-private partnership that could include arts, cultural, and entertainment uses. Staff have not presented a finalized proposal, but the direction signals continued interest in pursuing a significant civic project on this publicly owned site.

The current request is procedural – extending the “land hold” to allow additional conversations and concept development to move forward.

Our Assessment (updated 3/23/26): This decision is fundamentally about process and trust.

Community members have expressed concern not simply about the project itself, but about how decisions are made — particularly given the history of land acquisition and displacement in The Block and East End area. The request coming out of recent community conversations has been clear: if the City moves forward with a land hold, it should simultaneously commit to active partnership in decision-making with a cultural partner who is locally-rooted and representative of the communities that will be impacted. (You can read the report-back and recommendation that emerged from a community-led meeting on this issue here.)

The City’s latest materials emphasize outreach and engagement, which is a positive step. However, they stop short of committing to shared decision-making. Without a formal role for a community partner, the process risks following a familiar pattern:

• decisions shaped early by the actors with the greatest economic influence
• community engagement that informs but doesn’t empower
• limited ability to influence outcomes

The land hold itself is not the concern. In fact, a two-year exploration period could create space for meaningful collaboration. But that only happens if the community has a seat at the table from the start — not just an opportunity to provide feedback as key decisions are shaped by other players.

For that reason, we believe City Council should approve the land hold only if it is paired with a binding commitment to:

• include a locally-rooted cultural partner in all decision-making regarding the project
• identify and grant that partner voting power early in the process
• provide public updates on progress

This approach allows exploration to continue while building trust and ensuring that development decisions affecting The Block and East End / Valley Street are shaped with — not simply presented to — the community.

Update 3/2/26: This is not an argument against the arts or against a performing arts center. It is an argument that large public-private projects should not accelerate displacement in historically Black neighborhoods harmed by the City’s own urban renewal campaign, especially when the City has limited fiscal capacity to correct course later.

Why the Land Hold Vote Matters

A land hold:

• Signals to developers that the City is serious about moving forward

• Gives the City leverage to negotiate with a developer

• Creates a window in which the City can establish mandatory conditions the developer must meet

If displacement protections are not named as a condition now, they are unlikely to emerge later.

We are not necessarily opposed to the construction of a performing arts center. However, we are alarmed that the leading site in consideration for this facility is on The Block downtown. The construction drawings from the planned presentation before City Council depict a massive building just steps away from the YMI Cultural Center and the heart of The Block business district. The presentation insists that this site is “not associated with Urban Renewal parcels” – the City has declared a moratorium on development on those parcels as part of its incomplete Reparations process – but then goes on to acknowledge that the area was “impacted by Urban Renewal.”

This strikes us as a significant understatement. Prior to the East End / Valley Street urban renewal project in the 1970’s, there were dozens of businesses on The Block, including the very stretch of Eagle Street that is being targeted for this new development. The City’s decision to tear down hundreds of homes and businesses caused massive ripples throughout Black communities and devastated neighborhoods like The Block and East End / Valley Street, which the City openly acknowledged and promised to amend in its 2020 Reparations Resolution.

Building a massive performing arts center on The Block risks still more damage to the adjacent Black communities. Here are just some of the likely consequences:

• Housing displacement in the East End / Valley Street neighborhood. Large projects like these often increase nearby land values, and that in turn tends to increase rents and property taxes.
• Cultural displacement for The Block. Local Black-owned businesses are at risk for displacement as a result of the expectable rising land values. In addition, these kinds of massive facilities typically dominate and transform the neighborhoods they are located in. For the past few years, the Block Collaborative has been working with the City, through a grant from the Mellon Foundation, on the Boosting The Block initiative, which is supposed to develop a Black cultural corridor from Pack Square to The Block. That work could easily be overshadowed and rendered irrelevant by the placement of a massive arts center in such close proximity.

There is nothing in this proposal that binds the City to a plan to develop a performing arts center here, but momentum is building for it and we think that demands a course correction. Because this involves public land in a historically impacted area, it’s imperative that the City do extensive community engagement and demonstrate meaningful equity protections before advancing further on this project.

The Ask (updated 3/23/26): We invited you to join us in making a public comment at or before the Asheville City Council meeting on March 24th.

Updated 3/16/26: We invited you to join us in calling on the Asheville City Council to commit to formalized community participation in the development negotiations around the proposed performing arts center on The Block.

Report Back

Update 3/26/26: City Council voted unanimously on Tuesday, March 24, to place a two-year land hold on the “Parkside” parcels to explore the building of a downtown performing arts center in Asheville. Importantly, the final approved version of the resolution stipulates that the City will “create and utilize, as part of this process, meaningful and robust partnerships [emphasis added] with the surrounding communities, including but not limited to the Block and East End.” Read our full update here.

Update 3/2/26: The Performing Arts Center was discussed extensively during the worksession (the conversation takes place at approximately 1:18–1:45 of the linked video). The worksession conversation focused on site control, financing structure, potential partnership terms with ATG, projected economic impact, and next procedural steps. Council members asked questions about cost exposure, risk allocation, and revenue assumptions. Council Member Antanette Mosley suggested that this project was a good candidate for a displacement analysis. In addition, several Council Members (Roney, Ullman, Mosley, Hess) did suggest it was important that community members from those two neighborhoods be included in planning conversations. Chris Corl, Asheville’s Director of Community and Regional Facilities, suggested that those neighborhoods could be included in the deal “if (they) could bring money to the table,” but then also agreed (when asked) that their interests needed to be considered differently than other potential private partners. There was also discussion about how the performing arts center could impact the ongoing “Boosting the Block” initiative, which is a Mellon Foundation-funded effort to amplify the presence of that area in relation to the rest of the city. Director Corl said (when asked by Council Member Hess) there would not be a possibility for any public community engagement before the March 24th vote, but Council Member Ullman offered to lead such a meeting. 

Total GAP Supporter Actions Taken: 98

Recipients and Responses:

Asheville City Council

• Mayor Esther Manheimer: No response
• Vice Mayor Antanette Mosley: No response
• City Council Member Bo Hess: Responded (see below)
• City Council Member Kim Roney: Responded (see below)
• City Council Member Maggie Ullman:  No response
• City Council Member Sage Turner: No response
• City Council Member Sheneika Smith: No response

Email response from Council Member Kim Roney:

I appreciate your reaching out about the proposed performing arts center on the Block in East-End Valley Street.

I have reviewed the report from the community meeting and the recommendations. I am mindful of the harms of the past and hopeful repair is possible, especially if true partnership is the goal and equity is our demand for how to get there.

With shared concern,
Kim

Email response from Council Member Bo Hess:

Thank you for your input and perspective, it has been taken to heart.