ASHEVILLE - One of the oldest breweries in Asheville is expanding in a sign of the times for a growing city.

French Broad River Brewing Co., founded in 2001, is under new ownership by Paul and Sarah Casey, a Chapel Hill-based husband-and-wife team who finalized the purchase June 1.

Paul Casey, who has worked with Quintiles, a global research organization for the health care industry, bought the building housing the brewery and an adjacent performing arts venue, Toy Boat Community Arts Space.

The couple has since asked the venue, which has been in the space for six years, to depart in January to make way for the brewery's upcoming expansion. Some artists say the situation illustrates the difficulty they face in living in city that's beginning to no longer feel like a haven for creatives.

"It's a weird time to be an artist and performer in Asheville," said Nina Ruffini, Toy Boat's owner and a visual and performing artist. "Something that's held up to be the identity of this town is taking a back seat to things that are profitable. How many breweries with wooden and metal decor and chalkboards do we need?"

Casey said he's investing in Asheville and one of its oldest breweries, putting money into a building he said no longer fits with the neighborhood, and looking into pedestrian improvements for the people who live there.

Though he said the "French Broad brand has a lot of upside," it needs some updating. "We want to make sure it continues to have place in the local conversation and continues to be a part of the Asheville scene."

In Asheville, beer is much more than a conversation piece. A contribution analysis released in May by the Economic Development Coalition for Asheville-Buncombe County said the brewing industry added nearly $1 billion to the local economy in 2016, with breweries adding more than 600 direct jobs from 2011 through 2016.

For her part, Ruffini said artists contribute in ways far harder to quantify, serving as "community culture-keepers."

"It's important to keep alive the culture of a community," she said, adding that Asheville's arts scene is often showcased as a draw to tourists. "Asheville, as a whole, has wanted to bottle that up, present that, to let that be and celebrate that," she said. "Outside of our Asheville bubble, that isn't always the case."

Casey said he understood the pressure local artists feel to find affordable spaces to perform or create. "It's a tough one," he said, noting he's aware of similar struggles in the River Arts District. "It does feel like there's space around Asheville — maybe not downtown — but there's got to be some available space for artists."

"But go back 10-15 years ago, and what did the (Asheville) community look like then?" he added. "Did they aspire to that or a different way? It seems to me like Asheville is trying to build growth and momentum."

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French Broad's current taproom and production footprint is around 2,500 square feet. Toy Boat pays $1,790 a month for 4,000 square feet of space.

Forthcoming renovations will update and expand the brewery's interior, and increase brewing capacity from its current 3,000 barrels. At full capacity, Casey thinks the brewery's output could be around 4,800. He's already working to make the exterior more welcoming and is looking adding crosswalks and sidewalks nearby.

It's all in effort to bring French Broad closer to the standards that can be seen in many local breweries, including Catawba and Highland Brewing companies, "and Twin Leaf on a smaller scale," he said.

"They're a destination where people want to come and check out the vibe," he said. "We should be held to the same standard of making (our brewery) an enjoyable customer experience."

When Casey bought the building, he told Toy Boat's owners they had 12-18 months to vacate. But when Casey started looking into major upgrades, he realized they would cut into his already small taproom space.

"So, we were looking at having to build a bigger taproom and then having to tear it down in a few months," he said.

In late August, he decided to terminate Toy Boat's lease in January, forcing cancellation of some already booked events.

"It has nothing to do with how can I make more money per square foot," Casey said. "It's just to grow the business ... I was faced with, do I want a short-term fix, or do we think longer term from the standpoint of our vision?"

French Broad has seven full-time and two part-time employees, and stands to add more as the brewery grows. Casey also noted that the performing arts would continue on in the brewery.

"Live music has been a staple of our offerings from the beginning, and that's going to continue," he said. "We only hope to grow and expand in that respect."

Ruffini acknowledged her relatively low rent but said Toy Boat's partners had made numerous sweat equity upgrades. "We've outfitted it as a theater, hung lights and speakers, extended the stage, added electricity, put a floor down (and) re-topped the bar."

Toy Boat has also added strong beams in the ceiling to support aerial artists. "Not a ton, but for us anything is a big deal," she said.

When she and two others signed a year-to-year lease on the space six years ago, the neighborhood was still considered "on the outskirts."

But in a sign of how fast the neighborhood's changing, she last month received her first noise complaint during a dance party. "We've always been in a commercially zoned industrial area," she said. "We thought, 'Wow, things are changing.'"

Jim Julian, a contributor and organizer of Asheville Vaudeville, said Toy Boat has been home to the performance art troupe for about five years. It's been one of the few such spaces accessible to performing artists in Asheville.

Toy Boat, he said, is more than a performance venue.

"It gives performers the opportunity to have a nice stage to perform on," Julian said. "It's a content generator, or at least a place to build that content."

Julian said Asheville Vaudeville is looking for another home. '"But the real estate and availability for artistic groups to have practice spaces and rehearsal time is going to get a lot harder for us."

But he thinks the arts community has the power to weather the growth.

"With all this beer and food there comes a point where people are looking around to see what else is available in Asheville. We're hoping our home-crafted entertainment is something folks might venture out to find."

In the meantime, Ruffini said she's been venturing to areas outside Asheville to find a new home for Toy Boat.

It's a personal mission to help the Asheville arts scene thrive — even if its epicenter might shift.

"I think the arts offer people a more free way to be, a more in-touch life to live, and people want to continue to have contact with that," she said. "There's something amazing about watching a live performance. It sparks something. You know that that's something special."