ASHEVILLE – A candidate elected in this month’s City Council race said she has given back a prominent hotelier’s campaign donation.
Councilwoman-elect Julie Mayfield sent out a notification Wednesday afternoon to local media saying she had given $500 back to John McKibbon, a Florida-based hotelier involved with several major Asheville projects.
McKibbon’s company has built hotels in Asheville, including the Aloft, a colorful Biltmore Avenue building on top of a city-owned parking deck. McKibbon Hotel Group of Tampa, Florida, is constructing the downtown AC Hotel at the corner of College Street and Broadway and has plans to revamp the BBT Building into what he has called an “upper-upscale” hotel and condominium complex.
Mayfield, who was elected Nov. 3, made the announcement about the donation less than a month before the council is scheduled to vote on approval of McKibbon’s latest project. That vote is set for Dec. 1, the same day Mayfield and two other newly elected council members, Brian Haynes and Keith Young, will be sworn in.
“With a McKibbon Hotel Group project potentially coming before council so quickly on the heels of the campaign, I have the opportunity to dispel any perception that I am beholden to anyone but the residents of this city,” Mayfield said in the notice.
Mayfield is an environmental attorney and co-director of a regional environmental advocacy group MountainTrue. She was among candidates criticized for taking money from the hotelier. Hotels in general became a symbol during the election of too-fast-paced growth and a tourism economy that critics said has offered few benefits to locals.
“As an elected official, I will make decisions according the law and, where discretion is allowed, according to what I understand to be in the best interest of the community and the city of Asheville,” Mayfield said.
McKibbon who is chairman of McKibbon Hotel Group, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. He participated Tuesday night in a Citizen-Times forum on growth, “Growing Asheville For All,” during which he jokingly referred to himself as “Dr. Evil,” referencing the election’s focus on hotels. He defended the tourism industry, saying it has supplied 8,000 jobs in Buncombe County over the last five years.
His company’s plans for the iconic 17-floor BBT Building include renaming it to the Nouveau Tower at One West Tower at Pack Square. The building is to house the Vandre hotel.
Scheduled for completion in 2017, the renovation will have 133 hotel rooms, 41 condominiums, a hotel restaurant, a 2,500-square-foot separate leased restaurant with access to North Pack Square and 1,650 square feet of retail space that will face College Street, according to a draft city staff report on the project.
Plans call for a lobby bar and more than 5,000 square feet of meeting and event space on the second floor.
Also planned: A 60-space, three-level, 35,300 square-foot parking structure along North Lexington Avenue.
Leave a Reply