News — RADBA

Question: What's going on with the Stoneyard Apartments that were proposed and approved for the River Arts District in 2017? At one time they were delayed but remained committed to moving forward with construction slated to begin in June 2019. Since the last update a year ago, there has been no activity. Have they decided to abandon the project after all?

My answer: Fair question: Has an apartment proposal in this area ever not been delayed?

Real answer: The project is still a go, but it is running behind schedule. Developer David LeFave explained what's been going on, offering a two-pronged answer.

"One is we had hoped to start this time last year, but we ended up with site conflicts with the River Arts District road improvements and greenway plan," LeFave said. "We had some issues we had to handle, and that took about nine months to get it all ironed out."

The city has completed a lot of the work on its ambitious plan for the River Arts District, Asheville's popular artists enclave by the French Broad River. Called the River Arts District Transportation Improvement Plan, or RADTIP, it's a $54 million plan, funded largely with federal dollars, calling for greenways, traffic circles, parking and other improvements along the river.

The city broke ground on the RADTIP, a 2.2-mile project, in August 2017.

The second prong of LeFave's answer is the pandemic. The delays with site conflicts "brought us into the spring of this year, or late winter, really.

"And there we were with the pandemic," LeFave said. "We started looking at, 'Would it be practical to put 1,000 workers on that site in a pandemic?' I don’t think so. I'm not sure it would be humanitarian any way to do that."

When the pandemic ends is anyone's guess, but it looks like a vaccine won't be widely available until next year. The good news, LeFave said, is that the city is knocking out a lot of the work that needs to take place with the greenway.

"We’ll be looking at actually starting (construction) by year's end, depending on the pandemic," LeFave said. "We're not going to go forward if we're in a second wave."

The plans for the project remain the same, LeFave said, and the permitting approval from the city is open-ended.

In November 2017, Asheville City Council voted 5-2 to conditionally zone the Stoneyard Apartments project at 175 Lyman St. Last estimated at $19 million, the project will include 133 apartments in four separate buildings, a restaurant, 10 artists studios and a parking structure with 85 public parking spaces.

It's to be built on a former stone yard, and the developers want apartments to fit in with the character of the district. They also plan to preserve the roughly 115-year-old Carolina Coal and Ice building, LaFave said.

The lower level of that two-story building, across Lyman Street from the former, original 12 Bones location, is something of an iconic ruin in the RAD.

"On the Riverside Drive end of it, there's no roof on it, and we're not going to put a roof on it," LeFave said. "The main floor is going to be a restaurant with outdoor dining. We're actually going to make it have a little more ruined look, with some more windows punched into the brick."

The second floor will be artist studios and small offices.

As far as the new buildings, the first of those could be ready in 2021.

"We have four buildings, not counting the old building we're restoring," LeFave said. "Each of the new buildings is free-standing, so they'll go up one at a time. So that will be able to come online and we could have a (certificate of occupancy) before the end of next year on the first one."

The second, third and fourth buildings will come online in the following months.

https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2020/08/24/answer-man-stoneyard-apartments-rad-still-go/3409707001/