The Asheville Downtown Commission on Friday approved a wording change to downtown zoning regulations that will allow Brother Wolf Animal Rescue to open a “cat cafe.”

Denise Bitz, executive director of Brother Wolf, said the proposed cat cafe would be part adoption center and part coffee stop. Any food would be made off-premise and brought in for sale, she said in addressing health concerns.

A cat cafe “is a creative way to get cats out of a busy shelter” that can be loud and stressful, Bitz said. The organization has 50,000 followers on Facebook, and when it suggested an Asheville cat cafe in a recent Facebook post, it became Brother Wolf’s most popular FB post ever (beating out a photo of some sexy local firemen walking dogs, she said.)

Brother Wolf hopes to adopt 500 more cats a year through the downtown cat cafe, Bitz told the commission. The cat cafe would hold about 20 to 25 cats on any given day, she said.

“We are a very dog-centric town, so we want to give some feline love to cats,” Bitz said. Brother Wolf doesn’t have a proposed location, though it had been eyeing a spot on Battle Square that has subsequently been rented, she said.

And yeah, Portland opened its first cat cafe earlier this year.

In other action, the Asheville Downtown Commission:

-voted to elect member Adrian Vassallo its chairman.

-approved a zoning change for 202 Asheland Avenue to “central business district.” Staffers said they’re prepared to restart action to bring the entire Asheland Avenue corridor under the city’s central business district zoning regulations. Asheland parallels Coxe Avenue, a part of the city’s central business district that has been booming with new small business development – namely craft breweries and restaurants, over the past few years.

Image link for cat cafe.