News

Carolina Village offers $700,000 for Opp House

Participants in an online hearing on the sale of the Opportunity House included, clockwise, from top left, receiver John D. Noor, Superior Court Judge Peter Knight, attorney Abbie N. Hornberger and Carolina Village President Kevin Parries.

By Bill Moss, Published: September 19, 2024

Resurrection of the Opportunity House to serve the community once again as a senior center — and a provider of many other services — made a stride forward last week during a Superior Court hearing.

No one raised objections to a receiver’s recommendation that the court authorize the sale of the property to Carolina Village for $700,000. Chief Resident Superior Court Judge Peter Knight told the court-appointed receiver, John Noor, that he wanted to review creditors’ claims against the Opportunity House before ruling on the motion. Otherwise, the judge raised no objections. “Certainly, Carolina Village has a good reputation in the community as far as how it’s run and the services it provides,” he said.

Knight asked Carolina Village President/CEO Kevin Parries to submit board minutes or a board-adopted resolution detailing a business plan for the services the retirement facility board would like to provide.

No senior center

After plan to sell the property to the Hendersonville Connections Center for use as a clearinghouse for homeless services fell through later last year, “We went out and solicited new offers to purchase the property,” Noor, an Asheville attorney, said. “One of the opportunities that came forward was to work with Carolina Village on a purchase that would do similar services to what had been previously done on the property related to the aging population here in Henderson County.”

Noor called on Parries to describe Carolina Village’s vision for the Opp House.

“One of the things that we have been doing here at Carolina Village is looking at what services are not available in the community at large and see how Carolina Village can fit with that as a part of our community outreach,” Parries said. “There’s a lack of a senior center. We’re one of only three counties in the entire state that doesn’t have a senior center since the Samuel Williams Center closed several years ago.”

Potential partners include Mountain Care Adult Day, the Henderson County Council on Aging and the Henderson County Children and Family Resource Center. One proposal is to provide daycare. Parries thanked the nonprofits for “coming to the table to collaborate on how we can provide services from newborns all the way to seniors in our community.”

In his motion, Noor said Carolina Village leaders had indicated they had plans to use the building as a “community center offering a range of services to Henderson County residents and employees through collaborations with one or more local nonprofit organizations, including senior care, adult day services, memory care, mental health clinics, therapy services and childcare facilities, as well as specialized programs and facilities addressing unmet needs in the county, particularly in areas such as Alzheimer’s and dementia services.”

Foundation supports proposal

Among those watching the hearing remotely were leaders of the Community Foundation of Henderson County, which brought the lawsuit in 2018 that led ultimately to the dissolution of the Opp House.

“We are in support of this plan, and feel like it even goes further than previously discussed plans of being able to offer services to the community and to the varied age groups that Opportunity House was originally established to do,” McCray Benson, the foundation’s president and CEO, told Judge Knight. “I think Carolina Village offers the stability and the capacity to be able to pull this off in a way that our community would be able to participate in and enjoy at many different levels — from employees and staff that may have childcare needs, from the interactions with seniors to young people, the ability to have day programming, the Council on Aging discussions … The variety of services just would be a great boon and asset to this community.”

Jamie Weiner, executive director of the Children Family Resource Center, also endorsed the Carolina Village purchase.

“We are very excited about this potential opportunity,” she said. “We know that child care is a huge gap in our community. We have a lot of folks who can’t find slots, we have a lot of local businesses who are trying to think of creative solutions to try and get their staff to work and support their staff in this way.”

Lawyers cash in

Opportunity House’s liabilities total $503,306, Noor said in the court filing. Those include:

• Henderson County and Hendersonville property taxes, $185,424.
• ASG Strategies (Graham Mew, business consulting services), $108,057.
• Brian Turner, NAI Beverly Hanks, sales commission, $51,030.
• Noor, the receiver, and his firm, Roberts & Stevens, $64,869 at court-authorized rate of $300/hour for partners, $225 for associates and $100 for administrative assistants.
• Ferikes Bleynat & Cannon PLLC, attorneys for Opportunity House, $27,692.
• Wimer Snider P.C., attorneys for Opportunity House, $20,028.
• United Federal Credit Union, Opportunity House credit card used by executive director Ken Rhoads, $25,763.
• Internal Revenue Service, past due taxes for 2017 and 2018, $10,976.
• Pye Barker, water line repairs after December 2022 freeze, $5,266.
• ACE Appraisals Inc., court-ordered appraisal, $4,200.

Although a payment of $700,000 would cover the liabilities Noor has documented, Judge Knight was not ready to OK the sale without more scrutiny of the claims. He and Noor planned a conference after the hearing closed to discuss that and other topics.

Appraised at $1,890,000 in November 2022, the land and buildings at 1411 Asheville Highway are valued for tax purposes at $2,117,900.