Park with perfect downtown view missing in Asheville

It's the perfect place for first dates. For holding hands or for first kisses. For getting far away from the city grind without a plane ticket. It's the place for capturing a sunset shot as the glow douses the Asheville city rooftops. Or for getting an Asheville skyline selfie. And, if things go well on that first date, it could even be the ideal locale for an outdoor wedding.

But that would be if "it" really existed at all. Unless you're the owner of a mountainside manse on Sunset or Town Mountain roads that circle downtown, getting that spectacular downtown view is a hard thing to do.

Some residents and the environmental group Asheville GreenWorks are trying to change that, having targeted a seven-acre, city-owned parcel on Beaucatcher Mountain.

The land offers exceptional city views, but remains strewn with old city equipment and rusting pipes, concrete slabs and abandoned, graffiti-covered buildings.

A city parks plan approved in 2009 put priority on using the land to create White Fawn Park, named for the road leading up to the parcel, and for the old White Fawn Reservoir, which was built in the 1930s to supply Asheville with drinking water.

The reservoir has long since been drained and filled with old construction debris.

There have always been those for and against the project, said Willie Mae Brown, an Asheville native who has lived on White Fawn Drive for 46 years.

But neighbors in the White Fawn, Beaucatcher Heights, Kenilworth and East End neighborhoods are mostly in favor of preserving green space on top of "their" mountain, she said.

"I was very well pleased about a park development in my neighborhood," said Brown, who served on the board of Asheville GreenWorks (formerly called Quality Forward) from 1994-2013.

"Once you start talking about preserving open space, and a scenic space, providing nature education for children, the solitude of natural space, and when you think about the reservoir up there, it's a wasted space, in my opinion," Brown said. "The view from up there is unbelievable. Looking to the west there's nothing in the world like that."

Brown said she has done the hike herself along makeshift trails plenty of times and looks at the space as a possibility for an amphitheater, picnic tables, dog walking and outdoor weddings.

"But any time you talk about development, it always takes a lot of money," Brown said.

City Council approved a $310,000 contract in 2012 with the landscape architecture firm Stewart Engineering to design a greenway along the western slope and ridge of Beaucatcher Mountain.

The greenway was intended to connect Memorial Stadium with a park at the historic Zealandia Bridge (also known as Helen's Bridge) just south of the I-240 cut, said Asheville Parks, Recreation and Cultural Arts Director Roderick Simmons.

It would be about a mile-long paved path following an old roadbed through the woods. City Council accepted a grant from the state in 2009 to buy 30 acres of land east of Memorial Stadium and atop Beaucatcher, which the greenway will pass through.

Simmons, who took over as parks chief in 2007, said the greenway plans should be completed in the next three weeks, and will then go out to public comment and bid for construction.

The actual building of the greenway should start in three to four months, he said.

"The next step will be to start on the anchor parks. Right now the city doesn't have any funding for design. We'll need to look at another way to leverage funds. The parks have always been a project GreenWorks was involved in."

It's not easy being green

The plan for an urban oasis overlooking the grandeur of Asheville is nothing new. A plan created in 1920 called for a public overlook of downtown, Simmons said.

"You need a place for urban respite, but still be within a few minutes to downtown. It's not new, but the city has never been in a position to take advantage of it," he said.

On a spectacularly sunny Martin Luther King Jr. Day, with the air of hope and dreams still lingering from the morning's peace march, local supporters of the mountaintop park took a hike up to the White Fawn Reservoir, just off White Fawn Drive at the top of Alexander Drive.

The warm January sun and views sweeping out across the Blue Ridge Mountains, downtown, and to Mission Hospital and Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College, sparked wistful, creative juices flowing in the group.

Susan Roderick, who served as executive director of Asheville GreenWorks for more than 30 years, has been a champion of the White Fawn Park.

"I wouldn't want a lot of pavement up here," Roderick said. "Just some parking for those who can't hike, but most people would want to hike up here. I can see some water features in keeping with the historic reservoir. I wouldn't want to see ball fields, but I'd like to see a funicular, like they have in Europe."

Speaking of Europe, Roderick said, Asheville sister cities in France, Mexico and Greece all have such "overlook parks," where city ambassadors take visitors to show off their best assets.

Other American cities also have such sites. Tennessee's Point Park on Lookout Mountain, and Coolidge Park and Renaissance Park overlook the revitalized Tennessee Riverfront through downtown Chattanooga, said Candace Davis, marketing and public relations manager for the Chattanooga Convention and Visitor's Bureau.

Roderick retired as director of GreenWorks in 2013 but has kept in close communication with the Asheville GreenWorks leadership.

The organization works to beautify the city by cleaning up trash from roadways, riversides and parks, and planting trees and gardens and promoting green space through education and community volunteerism.

One of GreenWorks' 12 volunteer board members, Stephen Jones, was a passionate supporter of the park and greenway system.

A retired educator, Jones and his wife, Suzanne, had moved to the Asheville area a few years ago and become immersed in many volunteer organizations, including the Asheville Greenways Commission, Mountain BizWorks, the Western North Carolina Historical Society and the Unitarian Universalist Church.

Stephen and Suzy Jones donated $25,000 to Asheville GreenWorks in December 2013 specifically toward design plans for White Fawn Park. Earlier that year, Stephen had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. The construction of the park took on a greater urgency for him as he knew his days were numbered.

Jones died Jan. 9. His death before seeing a dream for his beloved adopted hometown has lit an extra fire inside the bellies of the board members.

"This was Stephen's dream to see this developed as a passive park, so people could use it as a place to enjoy the city and the mountain views away from the city," said Bob Roepnack, a GreenWorks board member who is also a general contractor.

"He had said he always lived up on a hill during his life and enjoyed it and he felt it was important to pass that ability on to everyone, to enjoy a view from up on a hill. His wife, Suzy, stands behind everything in his dream."

GreenWorks board members say they believe it will cost $50,000 to hire a firm to design the park plans. They are recruiting neighboring partners.

Dan Collier, on-site manager for the Beaucatcher Heights Development in Kenilworth, said the company hopes to partner with or support the White Fawn Park and Beaucatcher Greenway.

"Folks in Kenilworth and Beaucatcher Heights think it will be a fantastic park and a beautiful greenway and a great use of that space," Collier said.

The biggest need now is money to match what the Jones' have already donated, Roepnack said.

After a master plan is in place, removal of the junked equipment, soil testing, and approval from the city will be needed before construction of landscaping, benches, steps, lighting and possibly restrooms, could begin.

The nonprofit will be meeting with the city in the next couple of weeks to sign a memorandum of understanding to take over as the lead planning agency, Simmons said, but it shouldn't expect much in the way of funding.

"Right now the city doesn't have any funding for design," Simmons said. "We're starting to age out now and trying to keep up with maintenance and spruce up our facilities as part of the 2009 Master Plan."

Vice Mayor Marc Hunt said the city is focused heavily on developing greenways in the River Arts District, as New Belgium Brewery plans to open there soon.

"There are lots of competing pressures and projects. There is a big flurry of activity starting in the River Arts District," Hunt said. "Because federal money and N.C. Department of Transportation money is flowing in, I think that much of the budget the city would have to do parks and greenways would be focused there."

History of Asheville's parks

Building a park is not as easy as planting grass and trees. Although Asheville was one of the first municipalities in the state to create a parks department, funding for recreation is always a balancing act with other city needs such as firefighting, police and sanitation, Simmons said.

The Parks and Recreation department has a $9 million budget, roughly 6 percent of the city's budget.

The department maintains 54 parks and other special facilities, such as the Golf Course, McCormick Field, the WNC Nature Center, Riverside Cemetery and Food Lion Skate Park, six miles of greenways and 11 community centers.

The last addition to the Asheville system came after RiverLink purchased the old Asheville Motor Speedway in 1998 and donated the land to the city to create Carrier Park along the French Broad River. The 39-acre park includes greenways, ball fields, a bike track, an inline skating rink, picnic shelters and fishing piers.

"During the down economy the last six years, there was no money to add to additional costs," Simmons said. "We were able to add some facilities, but the key is maintaining them."

The 2009 Master Plan calls for the building of White Fawn and Beaucatcher parks, and replacing the Senior Center. After that, the plan is to expand parks to the south and north of downtown Asheville.

While visitation is very hard to estimate at parks like Carrier, where there is no fee, Simmons said it can be seen on weekends when parking lots are packed, and deduced from attendance figures at the fee-based Nature Center, which had a record-breaking year of 117,000 visitors last year.

"We need quality of life services to provide for people to make it a desirable place to live. We as the stewards of taxpayer money are just here to provide the services with the resources we have," Simmons said. "It's up to the citizens to set the priorities for the community, to show a vested interest."

Where can you get the great photo today?

The time for a park is now, Roderick said. Not just to honor a park promoter and benefactor like Stephen Jones, but because Asheville is hot right now.

The city continues to make "Top 10" lists for its outdoors amenities, music, food and growing craft beer scene. But it has no "overlook park," Roderick said.

The marketing materials — and places where teenagers take precarious-looking selfies — are mostly shot from private property along Town Mountain Road near the "cut," where the Beaucatcher Tunnel was built.

Asheville has some 9.1 million visitors a year, said Marla Tambellini, vice president of marketing at the Asheville Convention & Visitors Bureau.

"The nice thing that Asheville has to tap is the Blue Ridge Parkway with its amazing and incredible views of mountains, which is what people are looking for," Tambellini said. "If they want a view of downtown, they can get it from the Omni Grove Park Inn's Sunset Terrace and have a nice dinner."

Of course, that's not a public park, and involves laying out at the very least parking fees. And while beautiful in its stonework architecture, the inn is not a grassy, outdoor environment.

"When a city has an incredible view and an opportunity to showcase that, it can be quite the stopping point for visitors, and it will become part of the attractions that people want to visit when they're here," Tambellini said. "Having an outdoor space that has an iconic view of the city with places to park would definitely be an amenity to this city."