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Cook Out on U.S. 64 East before end of the year

Henderson County Business

Ask Matt ... about banks changing hands

Q. I read where Asheville Savings Bank has merged with First Bank. Which local bank has kept their name the longest?   As far as I could figure, only one bank has kept the same name for more than 25 years — First Citizens Bank but it didn’t start that way. It was First Federal until 1991. For the record, State Employees Credit Union is the oldest credit union in town. BB&T, a relatively new arrival to the county, is one of the oldest banks in the state. Chartered in 1913 in Wilson, BB&T, formerly Branch Banking and Trust, got its name from co-founder Alpheus Branch. Here are some that had recent name changes. Wells Fargo was Wachovia Bank. Bank of America was NationsBank and before that NCNB. Entegra Bank was Macon Bank. SunTrust Bank was First Union Bank and before that Northwestern Bank. HomeTrust Bank was Clyde Savings and Loan. Finally, TD Bank (Toronto-Dominion) was Carolina First Bank, and before that MountainBank. I found five “newcomer” banks that have not changed names: Carolina Alliance Bank, PNC Bank, RBC Bank (Royal Bank of Canada), United Community Bank and Woodforest Bank. Nashville-based Pinnacle bank merged with Bank of North Carolina last June and they closed the branch here. They have a branch in Asheville but no plans to open another Henderson County bank. Asheville Savings Bank has been serving WNC customers for 82 years but that will all change on Monday, March 19, when the old signs come down and bold red and white First Bank signs are unveiled in front of 13 former Asheville Savings banks. Headquartered in Southern Pines, First Bank has been around since 1935 and counts 104 locations statewide. The time and temperature on Sixth and Main will now be courtesy of First Bank. * * * * * This footnote may be of interest to moviegoers. The Oscar-nominated movie “The Post” is based on the 1971 publication of the Pentagon Papers — a report that exposed the private views within five administrations that the war in Vietnam was unwinnable. One key player who escaped being mentioned in the movie was Assistant Secretary of Defense John T. McNaughton, who worked for Robert McNamara (played by Bruce Greenwood in the film). Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who photo-copied the top-secret documents in 1969, once worked for McNaughton. Lightning readers may recall that McNaughton died in the mid-air collision of Piedmont Flight 22 over Hendersonville in July of 1967, just a month after he was assigned to collect and review the Pentagon Papers. Because of his close friendship with McNamara, many perceived McNaughton to be a war hawk but some have since written that he began to be opposed the war in Vietnam. Because he had considerable influence with Pentagon decision-makers, some historians have wondered if McNaughton’s tragic and untimely death prolonged the war.     Read Story »

Henderson County Business

Windy Knoll Acres would add 30 homes on N. Allen Road

A developer won tentative approval from Henderson County building officials to build 30 homes on North Allen Road north of the Classic Oaks subdivision. Smith Gilchrist Properties has submitted a development plan for Windy Knoll Acres, which would be served by the city of Hendersonville water system and individual septic tanks. The subdivision on 18 acres would have lot sizes of about a half-acre each and 1½ acres of common space, according to plans submitted to the Henderson County planning department. The number of units is below the standard density of four units per acre and does not require a change from the current R-1 residential zoning. The developer has designed a loop road serving the property to NCDOT standards, meaning it would be conveyed to the state for upkeep once the project is done. The county Technical Review Committee last week OK’d the development under the county’s land-use code for major subdivisions, provided the developer receives NCDOT approval for a driveway cut, said Zoning Enforcement Officer Toby Linville. The application goes to the county Planning Board on March 15.   Read Story »

Hendersonville Business

Planners recommend quarter-acre lots at Sylvan Terrace project

Neighbors are concerned that a rezoning to allow up to six single-family homes would add traffic to the winding and narrow Sylvan Boulevard.   Read Story »

Hendersonville Business

City OKs 67-home subdivision on Howard Gap

The Hendersonville City Council approved a rezoning on Tuesday that will allow a developer to build 67 homes on Howard Gap Road east of Nix Road.The 3-2 council vote came over the objections of neighbors who said the development would create traffic problems and make flooding worse on Clear Creek, which runs south of the development through what is now a farm field.The property owner, Mountain Bean Growers Inc., asked for the rezoning and annexation into the city so it can provide sewer for the project, called the Cottages at Cypress Run.Mike Anderson, the engineer for the developer, told the council that the builder would have to prove to the Federal Emergency Management Agency that the subdivision would not cause worse flood conditions that exist today.“We are not allowed to have any negative impact through the local regulation and through our permit process with FEMA,” Anderson said. Council member Jerry Smith wasn’t buying it.“I just can’t help but agree, regardless of what FEMA says, it just looks like this development goes too far into the floodplain and it’s going to push water somewhere else,” he said. “Unlike Publix, which used existing square footage, we are now adding square footage.”Councilman Jeff Miller said if the city would not accept FEMA’s regulations, it would have trouble approving many developments.“If we’re not going to accept FEMA’s standards, where do we go with that? If we are now saying that we’re not going to accept what FEMA says in certain areas, what do we do, where do we go?” he said. “I can’t as a member of the elected council just blow off FEMA. I have a hard time with that.”Yet Miller joined Smith in voting no on the rezoning application.Mayor Barbara Volk and mayor pro tem Ron Stephens said as much as they’d like to preserve farmland, affordable housing close to the city was also a priority. The developer plans to build craftsman-style cottages of 1,400 to 1,800 square feet that would sell "in the $275,000 range." “There’s a huge demand for that,” Stephens said. “While we want to protect farmland, there’s an amazing amount of demand for housing in this place. We’ve got to balance those interests, too.”Volk pointed out that the property, now in the county’s jurisdiction, is currently zoned residential, not agricultural.“I think I would have more problems with it if it was not already zoned residential,” she said. “It’s also fairly close to the city and I’d rather see it there than even further away so people would have to commute. No matter what happens there’s going to be more traffic on roads.”The developer has one more stop before stop before the requests are approved. Because the council voted 3-2 for the annexation, the council must vote a second time on that application. A second reading would require only a 3-2 vote to make the approval final.   Read Story »

Laurel Park Business

LIGHTNING EDITORIAL: Give roundabouts a chance

The prospect of roundabouts in Hendersonville seems to have flummoxed the motoring public and alarmed property owners. Roundabouts raise two different challenges. There’s no denying the fact that a roundabout takes up more room and thus would require the state to condemn more property to build them. We’re only at the mid stages as the NCDOT, local elected leaders and the public react, discuss and massage the plans. If nothing changed — an unlikely outcome — we would in the years ahead have three roundabouts on U.S. 64 — at Glasgow Lane, Pisgah Drive and White Pine Drive — one at White Street and Kanuga Road and a big one where South Church, South King and South Main streets meet.Right of way acquisition and utility line relocation is already under way for the first one we’ll drive around — on Greenville Highway at (realigned) Shepherd Street and Erkwood Drive. It can’t come too soon.“The whole thing with new traffic implementation, like when we do roundabouts, you’ve got to train people to drive safely through roundabouts,” said Hendersonville City Councilman Steve Caraker. “They’re not used to it. There’s a learning curve with anything you do. The people that navigate roundabouts well are the people that live near them and have to use them all the time.”So, the second challenge is whether the driving public will accept these changes, which are new to us but routine for millions of others. No, they’re not all in France. There are at least 10,300 roundabouts in the U.S. Florida has the most, followed by California and Texas.As we’ve said in these columns before, the NCDOT has proposed several efficient and well-designed road improvements for our area. Under these plans, it’s true, a ride through Laurel Park would be on a divided highway. U.S. 64 would have roundabouts to allow for safe, low-speed U-turns. A roundabout at Kanuga and White, it’s true, would be impossible without taking some business property or entire businesses. Those are not by themselves reasons to kill the improvements. The talk at public meetings seems to be based more on emotion and fear than on facts about the safety and efficiency, where roundabouts have a very good record.Are roundabouts safer for motorists, pedestrians and bicycle riders than conventional signalized intersections? Yes, and don’t take our word for it.According to the Federal Highway Administration, roundabouts typically achieve a 37 percent reduction in overall collisions, a 75 percent reduction in collisions resulting in injury, a 90 percent reduction in fatalities and a 40 percent reduction in pedestrian collisions. Why? Because one-way travel eliminates the possibility of T-bone and head-on collisions. One-way travel eliminates “intersection ambiguity” factors such as right on red and beating the light. Roundabouts naturally slow intersection traffic to 15-20 mph.Pedestrians are safer, too. So-called splitter islands (see rendering) provide a space between opposing lanes at each pedestrian crossing, and each crosswalk is set back at least one full car length from the roadway yield sign. During public hearings, the caterwauling crowd tells us that roundabouts will maim and kill elderly drivers. That’s false. Conventional intersections maim and kill much more efficiently. Older drivers are twice as likely crashes as younger drivers to be killed in intersection crashes. The FHA analysis of roundabouts cites a report that roundabouts generate economic benefits for nearby businesses. A road improvement project that included four roundabouts, landscaping, medians and sidewalks along a commercial stretch of highway in Golden, Colorado, lowered the crash rate from 5.9 crashes per million vehicle miles to .2 crashes MVM, resulted in slower speeds and faster travel time through the corridor and increased sales tax revenue by 60 percent along the roadway.“Well-designed roundabouts,” the engineers concluded, “are good for communities and businesses.”We know roundabouts and medians are still a tough sell, for business owners who may lose all or part of their real estate, for residents who would be blocked from left turns out of neighborhoods, and for the vocal No Change! caucus. But for the good of all, we ought to give the new roundabout designs a chance. As we are seeing on Kanuga Road and Highland Lake Road, if we allow only those who shout the loudest and plant the most yard signs to win the argument, we’ll be stuck in traffic a long time.         Read Story »

Hendersonville Business

Clinical quality measures rank Pardee in top 5% in U.S.

Pardee UNC Health Care has received the 2018 Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence from Healthgrades, the leading online resource for comprehensive information about physicians and hospitals, ranking in the top 5 percent for clinical performance among nearly 4,500 hospitals nationwide. “It is an honor to receive the Healthgrades Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence,” said James M. Kirby, II, president and CEO of Pardee UNC Health Care. “Our leadership, clinicians and staff share a vision for providing safe, compassionate medical care with excellent clinical outcomes. This recognition underscores our commitment to this vision.” Pardee has undertaken numerous initiatives during the past three years to advance quality and achieve the results recognized by this award, including investments in physicians, staff and equipment, service line expansions, and new technology implementation. Pardee is continuing to advance service and quality through recent initiatives, which include hiring Western North Carolina’s only fellowship-trained breast surgeon to lead its breast care program; expanding screening and navigation services for lung cancer patients at the Pardee Cancer Center; growing its chest pain treatment capabilities; launching Pardee Bariatrics and Weight Loss; and collaborating with local organizations to fight the community opioid epidemic.  The 250 recipients of the Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence stand out among the rest of U.S. hospitals for overall clinical excellence across a broad spectrum of care. During the 2018 study period (2014-2016), these hospitals showed superior performance in clinical outcomes for patients in the Medicare population across at least 21 of 32 of the most common inpatient conditions and procedures — as measured by objective clinical outcomes performance data (risk-adjusted mortality and in-hospital complications). “We commend hospitals that have achieved Healthgrades 2018 Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence, demonstrating a steadfast commitment to high-quality care for their patients,” said Brad Bowman, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Healthgrades. “Hospitals that meet these high-quality standards will continue to distinguish themselves with consumers making decisions about where to receive care.”  From 2014-2016, patients treated in hospitals receiving the Healthgrades Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence had, on average, a 26.3 percent lower risk of dying (across 19 procedures and conditions where mortality is the clinical outcome) than if they were treated in hospitals that did not achieve this distinction. To learn more about how Healthgrades determines Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence recipients,  visit www.healthgrades.com/quality.   Read Story »

Henderson County Business

Ask Matt ... what's coming on Asheville Highway

Q. The old First Citizens bank building near Patton Park is sold.  What’s going to go there? Not another bank. Actually the building at 1700 Asheville Highway was also an NCNB bank. It was vacant for years until last month when it was bought by Forest Dermatology. They have a main office in south Asheville and also operate in Spruce Pine. Cooper Construction Co. is doing the renovation. According to project manager Eric Oursler, the job will add another 1,000 square feet, most of which will be where the drive-thru lanes are located. The job is scheduled to be completed by April or May. They will remove the 12x15-foot concrete vault, no easy task, and the 3,000-pound steel vault door will be hauled off as well. Oursler said sometimes there is a market for old vault doors such as people that want to secure their valuables. Oh yeah, did the demolition crew find any leftover cash? Naw, not a cent. Here is a historical note. Charlotte-based NCNB became NationsBank in 1991 under the leadership of Chairman Hugh McColl Jr. and after some mergers became Bank of America. If you have the time to read McColl’s fascinating biography, you will discover that as a young man he learned the banking business from former Hendersonville banker Jack Ruth. Q. I saw a device at SunTrust bank in Downtown Hendersonville that uses facial recognition to access the bank vault. Is this the first use of that technology here? With far less fanfare than when the first motorcar came to town, facial recognition software has indeed come to Hooterville and from my limited research, it is the first public use of its kind in the county. The device you saw is made by Diebold (pronounced dee-bold). The company was founded in 1859 in Cincinnati and made safes and bank vaults. After recently acquiring a German firm, it is now Diebold Nixdorf. Not a jazzy name for a car company, but for the bank vault, ATM and security market, who cares? The device you saw uses facial recognition to enter the safe deposit vault. The good folks at SunTrust care enough about security to withhold details about the system. A cursory web search, however, yielded that SunTrust got into the biometrics business in 2014, and it'’s spreading. USAA already offers voice, fingerprint, or facial recognition to access customer accounts. Yup, no need to remember those pesky login passwords. So cheer up Bucko, facial recognition is here and one day you will check your library books without opening your wallet. Ain’t technology great!     Read Story »

Hendersonville Business

Thrift store expansion may cause temporary closings

The Blue Ridge Humane Society Thrift Store has begun work on an expansion that may disrupt access in the coming weeks. In addition to new sorting rooms and additional storage, a new paved parking area and a new donation drop off area are planned for the store, at 1214 Greenville Highway. During construction there may be times the thrift store will have to close on short notice for safety reasons. The nonprofit will post delays or closings at its website www.blueridgehumane.org Facebook page and in daily email blasts. When construction causes the store to be closed to the public, Blue Ridge Humane will still accept donations. If the store is closed and the parking lot is blocked off, the agency will move its truck to the old Food Lion parking lot and will have personnel on duty to accept thrift store donations.   Read Story »

Hendersonville Business

No change in special tax district, business panel says

Hendersonville's Business Advisory Committee rejected one member's proposal to scrap the downtown special tax districts and spread the burden on taxpayers citywide. Board member Bob Papes said it makes sense to raise the money from all taxpayers because they benefit, too, from a vibrant downtown. The city’s downtown Municipal Services District charges property owners a tax of 28 cents per $100 valuation. The tax is imposed on about 120 properties between King and Church streets, including more than 20 restaurants. It raises about $250,000 a year. The 12-cent MSD tax in the Historic Seventh Avenue District raises $17,000 a year. “The original impetus for the MSD (in 1975) was in fact a drastically changing retail environment,” downtown development coordinator Lew Holloway told the committee during its January meeting. “We had the movement of Belk and JC Penney out of downtown into the mall … Now malls are under assault and you have large retailers evacuating there.” Holloway visits downtown businesses to find out what they need to prosper. “I spend a lot of time talking about potties and parking because there is a need for bathrooms and parking downtown,” he said. “Our average rents range $8-10 a square foot. Outside the district you’re going to have a hard time getting space for $8-10.” Proceeds from the downtown tax district cover things like façade grants and downtown promotions. Raising the money through the general fund would require a 2-cent property tax increase for all and would cost the city the flexibility the special taxing districts have under state law. “We are able because it’s MSD dollars to do some creative things with grants and other things that are very difficult to do with general fund dollars,” Holloway said. “Because it’s generated in the district, we’re able to turn around and reinvest it in the district.” Committee member Beau Waddell said the change would have Main Street and Seventh Avenue competing at budget-crafting time with things like police, fire and streets. “That money just goes into the pot,” Waddell said. “They have to fight like everybody else because it’s not mandated that it be used there.” The committee took no action on Papes’s request.   Read Story »

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