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Biltmore Park


jr7777

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Biltmore park is a planned community in the Skyland area of Asheville, right off of Long Shoals Road.

This is a mostly wealthy neighborhood. In addition to having some very nice houses, it even has a "Town Square," which contains a Volvo plant, The WLOS studio, The Reuter Family YMCA, and much more.

I stopped by yesterday to take some pics:

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You can find out more about Biltmore park by visiting their website.

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Biltmore Park is really really beautiful. I've lived there for about the last 8 years. It's come so far in that time. When we moved to Biltmore Park, that whole area you took pictures of....pretty much didnt exist. We were the 4th house built on our street. Now, it's spread so much further. The Long Shoals road expansion has been needed for a few years now. Traffic from TC Roberson High School, Valley Springs Middle, and Estes Elementary, and people coming off the interstate pretty much brings it to a halt in its current state.

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Biltmore Park is really really beautiful. I've lived there for about the last 8 years. It's come so far in that time. When we moved to Biltmore Park, that whole area you took pictures of....pretty much didnt exist. We were the 4th house built on our street. Now, it's spread so much further. The Long Shoals road expansion has been needed for a few years now. Traffic from TC Roberson High School, Valley Springs Middle, and Estes Elementary, and people coming off the interstate pretty much brings it to a halt in its current state.

I wouldn't blame the schools necessarily.... they have been there for over 20 years... it might be more appropriate to say that traffic from biltmore park and the resulting growth, when added to the existing school traffic, pretty much brings it all to a halt.

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  • 2 weeks later...

OK, the revised master plan for the expansion of Biltmore Park Town Square have been approved by City Council. Already they have the YMCA and one retail/office building.

Phase I of the expansion calls for a 15 (or 18?)-screen stadium-style cinema, 170,000sf of retail, 40,000sf of office space, and 185 residential units. This phase will begin construction in Spring 2006.

Phase II includes a 9-story (originally proposed as 10-12 story) hotel, plus more retail, office, and 115 more residential units.

Several articles about the project:

  • One explaining how it got approved, and how the developer agreed to a 9-story height restriction from the Mountain Xpress.

  • One giving technical details and schedules from the Citizen-Times

  • And one from GlobeSt.com (a real estate news site) likening the plan to Birkdale Village

The site plan:

biltmorepark.jpg

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[*]And one from GlobeSt.com (a real estate news site) likening the plan to Birkdale Village

And rightfully so. Same planner: shook kelly. I hate to say it, but I do like this one. I think it is better than Birkdale. Birkdale is too retail oriented. It has big box shopping for pete's sake. This one has alot more office mix to make it a real livable, walkable community...

....On the other hand, I would be willing to bet, that less than half of the people that live here will actually also work here. The majority will get on the interstate and drive to Asheville to work... and then complain about all the traffic.

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I think the proposed residential and commercial areas of this project look like they will integrate well together, but the development's worst sin is how it relates with the outside world. It's a nice live/work/play setup for the 500 or so folks who will live inside the development and the ~1,500 people who live in the SFH's at biltmore park, and the several hundred guests at the hotel. But it will take a lot more than ~3000 people to make a 15 screen cinema and 200,000 square feet of retail profitable.

The town center of Biltmore Park is set off from Long Shoals Road by 1300 feet of dead space along Scheink Parkway. since the core of the development is so far from the major public right-of-way, the only real way to enter and exit the development is by car. Heck, even the folks who live inside the development are expected to drive to the nearby Ingles (which is outside the development.)

If Asheville Transit ever deems it worthwhile to serve Long Shoals Road to Biltmore Park and beyond they're stuck with the dilemma of actually entering the development and adding 5 minutes onto the route in each direction, or dumping passengers off 1300 feet away from anything, and a half-mile zig-zaggy walk from the theater. This probably won't happen for a decade or more given Asheville Transit's current budget problems, but the dilemma still sucks.

Dense "urban village" developments need to go in areas that are close to the core of the city or in places that can become urban hubs. They need to be constructed such that the walkable district can extend beyond the boundaries of the initial project by the initial developer. I HATE regulations that push intensive uses to the center of PDDs, because urban villages should address major public thoroughfares, not shun them.

Biltmore Park fails each of these criteria. So does RiverBend. I suspect the same will be true of Gerber Village as well. It turns out that the "Urban Village" zoning district (not to be confused with "Urban Place") has just been used to construct dense suburban sprawl and I hope the city takes a step back and rethinks what it's done for the city.

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  • 1 year later...

REI stands for Really Expensive Istuff (the 'I' in 'Istuff' is silent.) That place has some pretty incredible markups.

Mast, Black Dome, and Diamond brand (to name the local stores I can recall off the top of my head) should have little trouble undercutting REI when it comes to price. The local shops already have a good reputation among locals, too, but I predict that the ever increasing numbers of relocatees in South Buncombe will patronize REI almost exclusively, since it's a brand they're more familiar with.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Having lived in Biltmore Park for almost 10 years now, its come a LONG way. That entire area has completely changed, with the expansion of Long Shoals, the addition of a REALLY nice Ingles, and now the huge expansion of Biltmore Park itself. It'll be really nice to have the Barnes and Noble and the huge movie theater right down the street.

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