Before Hurricane Helene, Foundy Street was a hotbed for independent shops, galleries, studios, restaurants, and some of the country’s finest mural artists, who coated the historic buildings in a dazzling display of legal graffiti.
The River Arts District plaza was a key strand in Asheville’s cultural fabric for more than a century – first as an industrial hub, and later in the 1970s, when many of those factories were abandoned, as a collection of gritty old buildings where artists could afford to rent a space for cheap.
In the last decade, the block built on its reputation as a haven for artists, adding more space for commerce for everything from breweries and clothing stores to a yoga studio. But last fall, the creative renaissance at Foundy Street ground to a halt when the French Broad River flooded, reaching more than 20 feet high and engulfing the district.
When the water receded, restaurants, a winery, dozens of studio spaces and an independent movie theater lay in ruin.
The damage was so overwhelming that many businesses – including Tyger Tyger Gallery, Hawaiian eatery RosaBees and legendary barbecue restaurant, 12 Bones – announced they wouldn't rebuild on the low-lying Foundy Street. While much of the district is still in disarray – caked in dried out mud and littered with debris – recently, signs of life have cropped up.
Eddie Dewey, a co-owner of the property, confirmed that several businesses on Foundy Street, including a woodworking studio, a climbing gym and a 50,000 square foot art bazaar are aiming to reopen by the end of the year.
“That's a big deal,” Dewey said. “It's a big deal for the River Arts District to be able to say, ‘Hey, this was ground zero and within 12 months we're back.’”
A big tent solution
Before the storm, more than 60 area woodworkers sold their wares at Foundation Woodworks, a Foundy staple. The co-op reopened in an industrial-sized donated tent earlier this month.
Inside the temporary headquarters, saws buzz and hammers rattle as returning woodworkers create shelves, bowls and guitars. The 80 by 100 square foot structure sits on the foundation slab where plēb urban winery used to be, before Helene washed it off the foundation.
The skeletal framework of the studio’s original location, a few hundred feet away, managed to survive the wall of water from Helene.
“If you'd have asked me what I was doing after the flood, I was going to quit and go work for a friend,” Mark Oliver, a co-owner of the studio, told BPR. “Now we've got a shot to not only get our business back but help other people get theirs too, so it's exciting.”
Like many buildings in the River Arts District, Foundation Woodworks did not have flood insurance to cover an estimated $500,000 in damages, Oliver said.
“Bankruptcy was something we were looking at, which was scary,” he said.
But ultimately, he and his wife Jaquelyn worked up the courage to try and reopen their business, which like many buildings in the area, turned out to be surprisingly salvageable.
Operation Blessings, a disaster relief nonprofit, donated the industrial tent and furnished it with the expensive tools necessary for artisan woodworking. The Olivers also received support from Valley Hope Church and Antioch Christian Church, who supplied donations and volunteers.
“The plan is to work [in the tent] as long as we need to, and then pass it on to the next business that needs to use it,” he said.
By the end of April, the tent will become more than just a workshop, Oliver said. A section will operate as a temporary gallery where woodworkers can sell their pieces, just as they used to do at the 17 Foundy building.
Oliver said he hopes to reopen at the rebuilt location this summer. Since more than 51% of the structure was not destroyed by the floods, he was not required to build under the city’s new floodplain requirements, Oliver said, but still required a roof repair and a lot of mud cleanup.
“We’re just putting it back,” he said, with the exception of a few key structural reinforcements that would help with drainage and holding the roof in place.
“But if we ever get this much water again, I’m out,” Oliver added. “I’ve got one major rebuild in me.”
Beyond structures, rebuilding culture
Part of the mystique of the River Arts District rested with the eclectic and wide-ranging mix of artisans in the space.
A key part of that unique blend, Marquee, plans to reopen this summer, according to owner Robert Nicholas. Before Helene, the a 50,000 square foot art bazaar served as a space where more than 300 painters, vintage collectors, sculptors, furniture designers, ceramicists, jewelers and other makers sold their wares.
A marvel of scale, with vaulted ceilings and aisles of local art, the space felt like an endless stretch of vintage furniture and handmade homegoods.
About ¾ of the vendors who formerly sold at Marquee plan to return. Nicholas said he is proud to bring them back to The Foundy.
“Of course I was questioning, should I come back? You know, should we come back?” he said.“We were looking at other possibilities, but everything that I looked at just kept leading back to Foundy Street because nothing was as cool.”
“We love the culture that we were creating there – the community of artists,” he said. “And we just didn't want to take it out of River Arts.”
Two other cornerstone businesses, Cultivate Climbing and Wedge Brewery, are also slated to open this fall.
Pre-Helene, Cultivate Climbing was weeks away from opening a 13,000-square foot bouldering gym and cafe in the former indoor skatepark building. The empty concrete space sits next to the outdoor skate park, which survived the flooding with minimal damage and entertains a host of skaters daily.
The business was just waiting on its bouldering walls to arrive from the manufacturer in Bulgaria. In a “stroke of luck,” the shipment got delayed due to a port strike, Cultivate owner Devin DeHoll said.
“So the boat containing all of our walls and basically a lot of the interior construction of this gym was sitting out to sea waiting on the strike to clear when the storm happened,” he recalled. “Had that not happened, all of our walls would have been sitting in the building, would have been washed away and destroyed.”
The floods knocked down a few walls and cracked open a slice of the building’s foundation slab, DeHoll said.
“The bones were okay and that saved us,” he said.
His three other outdoor recreation businesses, all located in the River Arts District, were also compromised.
Insurance payouts and SBA loans took a long time, DeHoll said.
“The buildings where we had insurance policies, which were completely destroyed, it took them seven months to be able to issue a check,” he continued.
The process has been overwhelming, but for DeHoll, a desire to “put Asheville back together” inspired him to rebuild his businesses. Pre-Helene, he employed 93 people.
He hopes to bring all those jobs back when he completes rebuilds on his three other businesses, which include the Asheville Outpost, Asheville Adventure Company and a second Cultive Climbing location on Amboy Road.
The question of climate change
Whether or not to rebuild a business destroyed by a climate disaster is a tough question many folks in Asheville have puzzled over since the dust from Helene has begun to settle.
As they rebuild, business owners are also thinking about how this new version of The Foundy can be better than the old.
“Climate change is not near, it's here,” DeHoll said. “I think we can make The Foundy more energy efficient, environmentally friendly. I think that we can design things with more intentional green space.”
So far, businesses are taking a measured approach to resilience, rebuilding in much of the same way as before but with some structural tweaks.
The walls at Cultivate’s new gym, for instance, will include windows, rather than pure block wall, which would allow water from any future flood to flow through the building rather than stagnate inside, DeHoll explained. Marquee will be rebuilt with windows rather than pure block walls.
In the new version of Foundation Woodworks, Oliver has added extra columns and blocking.
He said he also plans to “be a little more nimble,” in preparation for another storm. “The conversation is Penske Trucks. We're just going to bring in trucks and load them. Everything's on wheels and just be really cautious of any rain that's coming, the hurricanes.”
It might get annoying, he said, but he plans to pull artwork anytime flooding appears possible for the studio.
For Dewey, who saw around $15 million in damage to his firm’s properties, rebuilding is also a risk he is willing to take.
"NOAA has called this a 1,000-year event. The geologists are calling this a 10,000-year event – how it impacted our mountains, how it moved and we shaped watersheds and things,” he said. “We are betting that we're not going to see something like this in the next 30 years.”
Renewal of the eclectic space is a vital part of rebuilding, he said.
“I believe that if we build back and we can put an art space back in place and local independently owned restaurants back in place, it'll make everything in town more successful again,” he said. “It's a way to help bring back and maintain that cultural community we have.”
