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Airport eyes hotel-convention center at Broadmoor Links

The Asheville Regional Airport Authority is negotiating with a developer for a prospective hotel-convention center at Broadmoor Links.

By Lightning Reports, Published: May 10, 2021

Henderson County could get a hotel convention center across from the Asheville Regional Airport.
The Asheville Regional Airport Authority took the first step recently to attract a developer to build a hotel-convention center at Broadmoor Links, the golf course the airport authority bought from a bankrupt golf course chain last year.
“We publicly put out a request for information,” Lew Bleiweis, executive director of the airport, told the Henderson County Board of Commissioners last week. “We put it out for a hotel, conference center and managing the golf course. We received one proposal or one letter of interest.”
Airport officials are in negotiations now with the developer that responded, adding that the company’s identity remains confidential.
“We don’t know how the negotiations will lead,” Bleiweis said. “But we want to be able to develop that golf course property in a way that would benefit our revenue and the airport but also Henderson County, because it does lie in this county.”
About 163 acres of the 193-acre tract land is floodplain, leaving 20-30 acres of high ground suitable for development.
Commissioner Michael Edney said golfers had complimented the course’s condition under a management contract the airport let after it acquired the links and clubhouse.
“Some folks were telling me that that course is in the best shape it’s been in in a long time,” he said. “So they must be doing a good job.”
Bleiweis agreed that the new management is doing a good job, noting that previous owner Warrior Custom Golf, which had been in bankruptcy since March 2019, had made no new investment.
“I will say that with the improvements, the green fees have gone up but you’ve got to be able to get out what you put in,” he said. “If we do turn the property over to a developer we anticipate a lot more improvements.”