Costco, the wholesale retail giant that planned to bring a store to Asheville after decades of searching for a site, has withdrawn its application for the new location.
In a Thursday email to City Council members obtained by Asheville Watchdog, City Manager DK Wesley said, “The applicant indicated that required on-site and off-site improvements have increased the project’s overall scope, timeline and anticipated costs.”
Wesley said the city was notified Wednesday of the withdrawal for the proposed store in the Enka Commerce Park site.
“As is not uncommon in large or complex projects, development applications are occasionally withdrawn for business reasons, including those unrelated to the city’s review process,” Wesley wrote.
Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer called the withdrawal a serious blow to the city.
“It is a tragedy, and I’m very disappointed,” Manheimer said. “I’m learning more about what the challenges are, and I’ll work to try to address any of them that I can.”
Councilmember Sage Turner said Thursday morning that the withdrawal is “disappointing news for our residents and the greater region.”
“The community was incredibly vocal in their support and desire for this new option,” Turner said. “I’ll be following up with their [Costco’s] team to learn more.”
Costco has been searching for a Buncombe location for decades, and locals often drive about 70 miles to Spartanburg, the nearest Costco location, or Greenville, South Carolina, to shop at the retailer’s nearest store. Last year the company submitted an application to the city for a store with 839 parking spaces on 25 acres within Enka Commerce Park, a request that would have required the city to approve a conditional zoning amendment.
The letter of withdrawal came from the BL Companies, an architecture, engineering and environmental land surveying company that was working for Costco on the project. Nettie Boyle, project manager for BL Companies, requested the application be withdrawn “from the current review process before the Planning & Zoning Commission and City Council.”
“Since submitting the application, additional requirements from reviewing agencies related to both on-site and off-site improvements have increased the project’s overall scope, timeline, and anticipated costs,” Boyle wrote. “As a result, the applicant has elected to withdraw the current submittal from the review process at this time.”
At a community meeting in August near the site, neighbors expressed enthusiasm about Costco coming but also concerns about increased traffic on Sardis and Sand Hill roads, as well as Smokey Park Highway.
At the meeting, Renee Rutherford, director of real estate with Costco, said the company’s stores, which are open seven days a week, can draw about 600 vehicles an hour, although she stressed that occurs at peak shopping times.
The Biltmore Lake neighborhood, consisting of more than 800 homes, sits just across Sand Hill Road from the proposed site. A busy Ingles grocery store is nearby, as well as several other industrial and warehousing operations in Enka Commerce park or nearby.
At the August meeting, Costco officials said they were working on a traffic study, and that the approval process for a store could take 12 months and actual construction another year after that.
The Watchdog reached out to Rutherford and Boyle, Enka Commerce Park owner Martin Lewis and the North Carolina Department of Transportation for comment.
In October, the Economic Development Coalition for Asheville-Buncombe County came out in opposition to locating Costco in the Enka Commerce Park, citing wage concerns, diminished property taxes and the potential loss of the city’s last remaining industrial development site to retail.
The site, the former location of the American Enka rayon plant that dates to the 1920s, received more than $15 million in tax dollars for improvements to roads, bridges, sidewalks, and greenway design, all in support of potential industrial employment. The funding came from Buncombe County (more than $10 million), NCDOT ($2.5 million) and the Appalachian Regional Commission ($3.1 million)
While industrial jobs typically pay more than retail, Costco is something of an outlier when it comes to wages. Costco did not comment last year on the Economic Development Commission’s position, but it did provide a fact sheet on its employment benefits and wages, as well as store performance.
Average annual sales per store/warehouse worldwide are $260 million, according to the sheet, and Costco “pays among the highest wages in the industry.”
U.S. hourly wages run as follows:
- Service assistant: $20 to $30.20 per hour
- Service clerk: $21 to $31.90 per hour
- Meat cutters $21.50 to $33.40 per hour
That would put annual salaries, based on a 40-hour workweek, in the low-to-mid $40,000s to a top rate of nearly $70,000.
The Costco store proposed for the Enka Commerce Park would have required “conditional zoning” approval from Asheville. While Costco had submitted plans, held a community meeting and completed its initial Technical Review Committee hearing, it still had a lot of hoops to jump through before it could start building.
The retailer was going to have to revise plans before the application would go to the Planning and Zoning Commission and ultimately to the City Council, Clay Mitchell, an urban planner with the city, said in December.
[Editor’s note: This story was updated at 11:44 a.m., Feb. 19, to include additional background.]
Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. John Boyle has been covering Asheville and surrounding communities since the 20th century. You can reach him at (828) 337-0941, or via email at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.