Written by John Reinan, Asheville Watchdog.
The gritty past of the River Arts District may be giving way to a glossy future.
Little more than a decade ago, the district was “a no-man’s land,” in the words of one artist, where painters, potters, and sculptors worked in shabby old warehouses and abandoned factories.
Now, it’s a major draw in Asheville’s booming tourist industry. The value of the once-neglected buildings is on the rise, with several prominent studio locations showing assessed increases of 30 to 50 percent from 2017 to 2021, according to county tax records.
Developers are moving in, with three major apartment complexes either under construction or on the drawing board that will add about 750 apartments and bring in hundreds of new residents within the next year or two. The district is also a city-designated hotel zone, with one hotel already open and another in the planning pipeline.
It’s part of a city strategy to nurture an expanded creative district along the French Broad River, said Stephanie Monson Dahl, Asheville’s director of planning and urban design.
“The River Arts District can be a place that supports creative commerce at all levels of the economy,” she said. “Creative commerce is not limited to people throwing pots and making paintings. The River Arts District can be a microcosm of the best creative activities.” That could include activities such as filmmaking, music, and food and beverage.
For many of the artists now working in the district, however, talk of growth raises the specter that they’ll be pushed out by rising rents. Having made the district what it is today, they fear they may not be part of its future.
It’s a common scenario in cities with an arts district, according to Robin Abrams, a professor of city design at North Carolina State University.
“It is a cycle that is repeated over and over in cities across the world,” Abrams said. “I call it, killing the goose that laid the golden egg.”
Molly Sawyer moved to Asheville 12 years ago from New York, where rising rents in the once-downtrodden, now in-demand neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen squeezed her out.
“It’s artists — scrubby dirties — who clean up a place,” she said. “We move in and make it desirable, enhancing a space by just being there. Then it becomes an interesting space to all other people who want to soak that up. Then we eventually get moved over and moved out.
“It’s becoming more and more uncomfortable, more difficult for artists to be here in Asheville when we are the ones who have aided and created Asheville as an arts center.”
For eight years, Sawyer has rented a small production studio tucked away in the rear of the Phil Mechanic building. When she moved in, her rent was $350 a month. She declined to reveal her current rent but said it has steadily increased. She also rents a separate display space in the Wedge, where customers can view and buy her work.
“I’m always on the lookout” for lower-priced space, she said. “Now I’m trying to float two [spaces], and that’s really tough.”
Artists on the move
As artists have left the River Arts District in recent years, some have found another river — the Swannanoa — where rent is cheaper. On Mulvaney Street, artists working in two industrial buildings have dubbed the area the “Little River District.”
Nick Cedarleaf was one of the first, setting up his Zen Pots studio three years ago. It’s a compact stall in a warehouse that had been abandoned since 2004 and now overflows with the gear of about a dozen artists and the trucking company that shares the space.
“It’s tough for an up-and-coming artist,” Cedarleaf said. “Studios [in the River Arts District] are too expensive and not available. You can’t find anything for under $500 [a month].” Cedarleaf pays $250 for his space, although others coming into the building after him pay a higher rate.
Artist Walt Nichols has been in the Little River District for two years. The established arts district, he said, is “kind of cliquey” and “there’s a waiting list everywhere.”
“This is right for me,” he said. “It has kind of an underground feel.”
Other artists — including several long-established names — have adopted a halfway approach, moving their working space out of the River Arts District while keeping a display gallery there, crucial for keeping their work in front of potential buyers in the high-traffic area.
Earlier this year, Michael Hofman moved his production work out of his Wedge studio after 18 years while keeping it as a display space. He said he knows several artists who have done the same.
“What’s happening in my building is because the rents and fees have gone up so much, I can no longer afford to have a studio down there,” Hofman said. “So what I did as of the first of the year, I moved production to my home studio.”
Hofman declined to reveal his rent, but said fees for items such as maintenance, renovation and taxes can add an additional 30 percent to his monthly nut.
The loss of working artists is a blow to the funky atmosphere that has made the district so appealing, Hofman said.
“What made it special was people would come in and talk to you,” he said. “It was a learning experience. I think the River Arts District is being diminished in that sense because you lose that direct connection.”
RAD ‘ex-pats’ go elsewhere
Other artists are moving to places like Marshall and Mars Hill. Miryam Rojas, owner of the Mars Landing Gallery in Mars Hill, said the outlying areas might be a better fit for artists who are doing experimental work that doesn’t match up with the tourist trade.
“Definitely, rent is a big factor,” she said. “But I think it’s also the tourist focus. They might be giving up their space in the River Arts District and buying here, working out of their home, and finding independent galleries that are more apt to show their type of work, as opposed to what the tourist market is being lured into. The River Arts District kind of has a hold on that now.”
Ceramic artist Josh Copus was a founder of the Clayspace Co-op in the River Arts District more than 20 years ago and still displays there. But he moved his production to Marshall more than a decade ago because it was a place he could own his own property. These days, he said, Marshall has “a ton of Asheville ex-pats.”
“I spent a long time making that neighborhood valuable, and at the end of the day I didn’t have anything to show for it,” Copus said. “And I realized that the key is ownership. So I chose Marshall as a place I could get in on the ground floor. I’m trying to create a space in Marshall where somebody like me 20 years ago can get started.”
Keeping artists in the River Arts District, he said, “has to be like a policy-driven thing. If you want to keep artists, you have to create incentives and policies to make that happen. Otherwise, the market will just do what it does.”
RAD going upscale
Even as artists move out, however, others move in. Landlords say they have no trouble filling empty studios, and artists say there is often a waiting list for vacancies.
What’s happening, many say, is that the district is transforming into a higher-end experience. Successful, established artists who can afford to pay the freight also can charge higher prices for their work. And that’s OK, said Julieta Fumberg, who has kept a studio in the Pink Dog Creative building for four years.
Fumberg’s studio has something of an office vibe to it with a desk and an array of computers, printers and scanners prominently in view. Not surprising, as Fumberg said she’s “a businesswoman first and foremost.”
“I have to make money in order to make it sustainable, and then I can make art,” she said. “If it gets more expensive, that will mean higher-end art, and that will mean higher-end customers, and that means collectors. And that’s who I want.”
Fumberg’s not unsympathetic to emerging artists; she was once one herself. But she thinks the district is no place for “the ones who are not serious about running a business.”
“I’ve had studios in weird places,” she said. “It’s OK — you can be anywhere. You need to find a warehouse somewhere.” And she doesn’t think gentrification is going to completely have its way.
“I think there are way too many people here to get gentrified,” Fumberg said. “To defend our beautiful River Arts District, we have more artists. There is no way they’re going to kick me out.”
Others worry about the district going upscale. Daniel McClendon, an artist who owns his own building on Depot Street, called the River Arts District “a rare entity.”
“The River Arts District will atrophy as an arts destination because of cost,” he said. “The reason people move to Asheville is its eccentricities. That’s what makes it appealing — it’s not generic.
“Tell me how great it is when you have a bunch of Sport Clips and Starbucks and no artists.”
The landlords’ point of view
Asheville is fortunate, artists said, in having many building owners in the district who are local, longtime arts supporters. A number of owners are artists themselves. Artists consistently said that their landlords are reasonable and supportive.
Hedy Fischer has been in Asheville since 1978. She and her husband, artist Randy Shull, bought the Pink Dog Creative building on Depot Street in 2010. Even then, she said, there were many empty buildings in the district.
“People were afraid of Depot Street. Non-artists would say, ‘Is it safe to come down there?’ ” Fischer said. Now, with the district thriving, Fischer tries to keep her studios affordable. But with increasing property values and property taxes, as well as insurance and utilities, it can be a challenge.
“If we have an artist who has been there a long time, their rent goes up incrementally,” she said. “But if someone moves out and a new artist moves in, I can ask more.”
But many of the local owners are now reaching the point of passing the torch. A recurrent fear is that when the current generation of owners moves on, the studio buildings will be snatched up by non-local investors who see them as a straightforward real estate play.
“A lot of us that own buildings down there are well into our retirement ages,” Fischer said. “What happens when I just can’t keep it up any more, and we sell the building, and I don’t know what the next owner might want to do with it?
“We’re all sort of aging out,” she said. “I think that’s something that’s going to cause change in the district.”
Preserving the artistic flare
Some of the newest owners in the district say they’re committed to keeping its flavor.
“We certainly don’t want to see the artists leave; that’s why we’re there,” said Brian Schick, a development partner with Raleigh-based Woodfield Development.
Woodfield owns The Wyre-River Arts, an apartment of some 235 units nearing completion at Roberts Street and Clingman Avenue. Woodfield also expects to begin construction later this year on the Stoneyard, a similarly sized development on Lyman Street.
Schick said his group is making an effort to connect with the arts community, and several artists spoke approvingly of Woodfield’s efforts. The building will feature displays by local artists as well as large murals on its exterior. Local glass artists will provide lighting fixtures.
Etowah-based Hatteras Sky owns the recently completed Radical hotel and the neighboring Phil Mechanic studio building. Amy Michaelson Kelly, a Hatteras Sky principal, said she and her partner invested in the River Arts District because “that would be the neighborhood that I would want to hang out in.”
“We’re very aligned with it culturally and philosophically,” she said. “Our objective is to continue having artists in the community. We all benefit from that in so many ways.”
The new owners are renovating the Phil Mechanic building and adding some offices but said it will remain primarily an artistic space. That might include such uses as music recording and candlemaking.
“I have a pretty ecumenical view of art,” she said. “We should be promoting all kinds of makers.”
Ultimately, the future of the River Arts District will unfold in ways nobody could imagine now, said Dahl, the city planning director.
“I think it will be the RIver Arts DIstrict for your and my lifetime,” she said. “Will it be that 50 years from now? I don’t know. It wasn’t the River Arts DIstrict 50 years ago.”
Gallery owner Rojas is confident that Asheville’s status as an arts center is secure.
“At the end of the day, it will be OK,” she said. “As long as Asheville and the surrounding area can lure people who are interested in art in all forms, that’s a win-win.”
Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. John Reinan was a reporter for seven newspapers from Alaska to Florida. He was part of a team awarded the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news coverage at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Email [email protected]