We all have our favorite memories from the Southern Conference Basketball Championship Tournament. Some of my favorites are the $2 bills Marshall fans circulated in the early days, and the amazing championship game in 2012 when Western Carolina and Davidson fans turned the newly remodeled U.S. Cellular Center’s ExploreAsheville.com Arena into a sea of purple and red. This coming week, new memories will be made as fans from all over the southeast stream into Asheville’s downtown to enjoy the annual homecoming that is the SoCon tournament. This is one of Asheville’s most popular weekends and it is a point of pride for our city to be a destination for a major NCAA basketball tournament.
Since 2010, when SoCon announced its return to Asheville, our enthusiastic community has rallied around the event, and the dedication of volunteers who make sure SoCon gets a welcome reception is outstanding. Each year we see more community events associated with the tournament. Part of Asheville’s endearment to the schools of the Southern Conference was the promise of huge local youth involvement. Events like Education Day, where youth from area schools and Asheville Parks and Recreation programs fill the stands fill that promise. Another is the Downtown Dribble, a free parade that brings children to downtown where they dribble basketballs from Pack Square to the center, fulfill that promise.
The Southern Conference organization’s commitment to this city is testament to the collaboration, teamwork and investments we have made to bring SoCon here. It took the contributions of the city, Buncombe County, the Tourism Development Authority and the newly formed Asheville-Buncombe Regional Sports Commission to get the job done. These are strong community partnerships that remain to this day, and they make us a better place to live and to visit.
Financial collaboration and the naming rights partnership with U.S. Cellular allowed us to invest the kind of funding needed to make the center a destination worthy of this event. The continued support of those partnerships has leveraged over $12 million of upgrades to the venue, enabling more and better events than ever before.
Our investment has paid off for Asheville. Early March is not traditionally a peak season for downtown businesses, but last year, people coming to SoCon generated an estimated $4 million in economic impact, including some 4,000 room nights for local hotels. For SoCon weekend, restaurants and bars become “home base” for loyal fans to reconvene and catch up. It’s kind of like a great big family.
UNC Asheville is another important partner, even though it belongs to the Big South Conference. Each year, UNC Asheville hosts early round games of the Women’s Tournament at its Kimmel Arena, and this year it will host the SoCon Wrestling Tournament. Athletic Director Janet Cone and UNC Asheville have been invaluable to our efforts through leadership and gracious use of facilities.
The U.S. Cellular Center continues to gain momentum, attracting great entertainment and large events. New club level event spaces create a more attractive venue, open the door wide for conferences, and increase the building’s economic impact even more. The next step will be to bring those kinds of positive changes to the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium and turn that space into a world class venue for fine and performing arts. Since it opened its doors more than 40 years ago, the Thomas Wolfe has been the community’s gathering spot and it is our responsibility to make it the best it can be.
Bringing SoCon home to Asheville is a great opportunity to showcase our city and it is a great reminder of why we live in such a wonderful place. It shows the pride we have in all we have to offer our residents and guests. I appreciate our amazing partner, the Southern Conference. They have made us their home, and I hope Asheville’s great relationship with this tournament is one that will continue for years to come.
Jan Davis is a a member of the Asheville City Council.
In Galveston’s heyday as a 19th-century financial center and booming port city, electric trolleys ran down the lushly planted esplanade on Broadway Boulevard, rolling past palm trees and stately Victorian homes.
The Great Storm of 1900, the hurricane that leveled Galveston and left 6,000 dead, altered the course of history for what once was Texas’ largest city. But the trolleys were running again before the bodies were cleared from the streets. More than a century later, Hurricane Ike put them out of service again.
Now the streetcars remain stationary and in disrepair, and the miles of trolley tracks that are visible in the pavement of this island city provide a haunting reminder of days gone by. But the trolleys soon could be zipping around the island again.
The Galveston City Council approved a plan to use federal and local funds to restore trolley service in the heart of Galveston.
The plan calls for adding rubber-tired trolleys to the rail system that will reach every tourist destination.
The cost for the city to rebuild the system would be about $202,000.
“The trolley system . would be the first step in developing a comprehensive transportation system on the island,” council member Craig Brown said.
By 2017, riders would be able to park at the $6 million Galveston Downtown Intermodal Transportation Terminal, expected to be completed in August, and hop on one of the refurbished trolley cars built to resemble 1904 electric streetcars. The line would run by the Galveston Pleasure Pier and the Galvez Hotel on the seawall, through the historic Strand district and to the University of Texas Medical Branch.
Not everyone is on board with the idea.
“I understand the romantic attraction of the trolley, but I also understand that when it ran before it ran at a deficit, and to me, that raises my eyebrows,” said council member Norman Pappous, who cast the lone vote Thursday against resuming the service.
If the council votes to revive the trolley line, it would join cities across the country that are turning to streetcars for transportation and to enhance tourism, said John Carrara, senior vice president for the Goodman Corp., which developed the trolley plan. Atlanta recently began streetcar service along a 2.7-mile loop between the King Historical District and the downtown/Centennial Olympic Park corridor, and Tucson, Ariz., launched a trolley. New ones are also planned for Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Charlotte, N.C., and Tempe, Ariz.
Galveston’s original “street railway” system debuted in February 1866, and it featured mules in the middle of tracks pulling cars containing a driver and passengers, according to a brief history published in The Islander magazine.
An extensive electric trolley system carried riders all across the island starting in the late 19th century. The service resumed after the 1900 hurricane, continuing until 1938. But these tracks eventually were torn up to make way for buses and automobiles.
Trolleys returned in 1988 along 6.8 miles of new track, a shadow of the original system, but not without controversy.
Galveston City Manager Brian Maxwell recalled that their return was strongly opposed by some. “The trolleys have been a divisive discussion since their very inception,” Maxwell said.
The trolleys proved popular initially, with ridership peaking in 1994 at 112,000 riders annually, according to a Goodman Corp. report. That figure dwindled as the aging equipment was beset with mechanical problems.
Hurricane Ike struck in September 2008, rolling 5 feet of salt water into the trolley barn and damaging the four fixed-rail trolleys. The storm surge mangled switches, electrical devices and trolley tracks as well.
More than $4 million in federal disaster funds and insurance money quickly became available to restore the trolley system, but successive city councils were leery of taking on a system that never paid for itself.
Opposition to fixing the trolley line remained strong and included Mayor Jim Yarbrough before his election last year. Since then he’s changed his mind.
“For whatever reason, we talked about it for six and a half years and the sands of the hour glass are running out on these federal funds,” he said.
Yarbrough was won over by the realization that if the city jettisoned the trolley system, it would have to repay more than $7 million in federal funds used to build and expand the most recent trolley. Maxwell said the price tag could be as high as $11 million if the cost of tearing up the tracks were included. Yarbrough said that the trolleys could lose a lot of money for many years before losses added up to $7 million.
Even Pappous, the most skeptical council member, concedes that the council is likely to approve rebuilding the trolley line. But he said, “I think, based on history, this is going to be a money-loser. I don’t think the general fund should pay for it.”
The city council-appointed Galveston Park Board, which has its own budget, on Monday answered Pappous’ call by voting unanimously to consider financing up to $200,000 of any operating deficit run by the trolley line.
Park Board Chairman Melvin Williams said he initially opposed reviving the trolleys, but was persuaded after reviewing details of the plan.
Meanwhile, an informal group of about a dozen businessmen and residents recently formed to support the trolleys and is looking into forming a nonprofit that would create an endowment to provide funding.
Barry Goodman, president of the Goodman Corp., wrote Maxwell that with help from the “private advocacy group,” the goal would be to reduce the cost from the city general fund to zero.
BLACK MOUNTAIN – Two Western North Carolina trail-hardened runners took different tactics to beat each other and the highest mountain in the East, covered in mounds of snow and ice, in the 40-mile Mount Mitchell Challenge.
Daniel Hamilton, 26, of Chattanooga, Tennessee, grew up in Franklin, North Carolina, and was a mile-runner during college at King University.
“Being an ex-miler, I tend to go out a little fast. After the first few miles, I said to myself, ‘That was a horrible idea,'” Hamilton said. “After the first climb, I was ready to be done. The snow was horrible. The first 10 miles were covered in fresh powder, but you kept breaking through to the ice. It was pretty bad.”
Hamilton said Shawn Pope, 26, of Black Mountain, gained about 9 seconds on him once they were off trail and hit the road. But that was enough motivation to get Hamilton going. He took off, and sped downhill, finishing the race in 4 hours, 54 minutes, 58 seconds. His tactic won.
Pope followed in 4:59:28. “I tried to get into your mind,” he said to Hamilton after the race. In third place in the 40-miler was Ryan Thompson, 33, of Granby, Colorado, in 5:06:58.
The temperature was in the low 20s at the start, with 15-20 mph winds, and only grew colder as the runners climbed.
The 26.2-mile Black Mountain Marathon started side by side with the 18th annual 40-mile Mount Mitchell Challenge. The races cover trails buried shin-deep in places with snow and ice, on single-track trail and other hazards such as long-hanging branches, and deceptively covered roots and rocks.
The challenge climbs more than 4,300 feet in elevation up to the 6,684-foot summit of Mount Mitchell, the highest peak in the eastern United States. The racers return on the same course, made even more treacherous by gravity, to Lake Tomahawk Park. The marathon takes runners over trails to the Blue Ridge Parkway before turning back.
The race, started by local business owners who wanted to attract athletes, tourism and attention to town in the bleak winter months, is sponsored by Black Dome Mountain Sports, Jus’ Running and Black Mountain Savings Bank. It traverses state park, national park and national forest land and is kept safely on course by up to 100 volunteers and rescue squads, said race director Jay Curwen, vice president of retail with Nantahala Outdoor Center.
The dumping of snow that covered Western North Carolina in the past couple weeks made it impossible to get the usual amount of staff and rescue personnel up to the summit, Curwen said. The Blue Ridge Parkway and Mount Mitchell State Park rangers worked with him to get some personnel up by vehicle on the treacherous roads, but the 40-mile race had to be slightly modified, taking runners on the state road to the summit rather than by trail.
“This made the race about 37 miles,” Curwen said. Times were not much faster with the shortened course because the snow made for such slow-going, he said. Last year, challenge champion Dane Mitchell finished in 4:45:54.
The female challenge champion was first-timer Jacqueline Palmer, 27, of Newark, Delaware.
“I’ve only been training in the flat lands in Delaware,” the physical therapist said. “It was faster than I thought. I never stopped because there were five girls right behind me.”
Decked out in full ski gear and goggles a whole day after his first day of skiing, Aidan Schneider, 10, was more in awe of his mom, Keelin Schneider, as he cheered her rounding the last section of the Black Mountain Marathon at Lake Tomahawk.
“I went skiing for the first time at Sugar Mountain. I went on the second hardest hill,” Aidan proudly announced. But hugging his mom after her epic run, he said, “I’ve seen her do it before. I run, but I know I’d never be able to do what she has done. It feels really good to watch her win.”
For Keelin Schneider, 37, Saturday’s race, which she finished in 4:02:02, was her third Black Mountain Marathon, a grueling run that began at dawn in downtown Black Mountain.
“I think it was the toughest one I’ve ever done,” said Schneider, who lives in Black Mountain and works with the Raleigh-based Be Active Kids. “There was so much snow on the first few miles, it was like running in quick sand. When we got to the Toll Road, the snow was more packed down. I wish I had my Yak Trax or screws (for her shoe bottoms), but there wasn’t anything I could do.”
Schneider was followed by Barbara Green, 41, of Asheville, in 4:13:42, and in third was Phyllis Tsang, 33, an architect from Charlotte, 4:29:47.
Tsang and her friends come from Charlotte every year and rent a cabin for the weekend for the races.
“Sometimes, I think it’s worthwhile to do something really hard,” she said. “It it’s not hard, sometimes, it’s not worthwhile. It’s not about the time, at least, for me.”
Gabe McGowan was the male winner of the marathon, blowing away the field in 3:13:34. The 25-year-old from Tucson, Arizona, is actually a native of Arden who attended Roberson High School and UNC Chapel Hill. His parents, Nancy and Ed McGowan, live in Black Mountain.
“I tried to get into the lottery for the challenge but didn’t make it, so I did the marathon,” McGowan said. “It looked like no one had ever broken three hours, so I was aiming for that. But the course has 2-6 inches of snow. Growing up, I read about the race in the paper but could never wrap my head around it. It’s a pretty cool feeling to cover that many miles, especially coming as far as I did for the race.”
He was followed by Patrick Chamberlain, 30, of Cleveland, Georgia, in 3:28:38 and in third by Keith Harris, 32, of Cincinnati, in 3:29:45. It was Harris’ third time to the races. Last year he ran the challenge, right around the time his son, Kent, was born. His parents, Ken and Marcia Harris, live in Black Mountain and volunteer for the race each year.
“When your kid does something like this, you think he’s nuts,” Ken Harris said. “Then you marvel at his ability to do something like this.”
Doug Hay, 29, of Black Mountain, just moved to the mountains a few months ago with his wife, Katie.
“The challenge of the mountains pushes you to your limits,” he said. “The more rugged the terrain, the more challenging the race, the deeper you have to dig and to see what you’re capable of. It pushes you out of your comfort zone.”
This year, the race proceeds will benefit the Swannanoa Valley Museum and Hall Fletcher Elementary’s running programs. The race is considered a huge economic boon for the area in a usually tourism-dead time of year.
Mt. Mitchell Challenge
For more results and photos, visit CITIZEN-TIMES.com.
Top male finishers:
Daniel Hamilton, 26, Chattanooga, Tennessee, 4:54:58
NEWBERRY — A one of a kind pottery sale is happening this weekend in Newberry as part of the first South Carolina Clay Conference.
Professional and amateur potters from across South Carolina are bringing their own pottery to sell during the conference. The pottery sale will be open to the public on Feb. 27 and Feb. 28 at The Gallery, 1104 Caldwell St. next door to the Newberry Arts Center’s entrance.
The SC Clay Conference is being presented by the Newberry Arts Center, which is a part of the city of Newberry’s Parks, recreation and Tourism Department.
Art program and conference organizer Marquerite F. Palmer has brought together professional potters Sue Grier from Asheville, N.C., and Mike Vatalaro from Greenville. With many years experience each, both will demonstrate their talents and techniques during the conference.
“The City of Newberry Parks, Recreation and Tourism Department has put forth great efforts to create an art center that educates and nurtures the community and surrounding areas with visual art experiences for all ages,” Palmer said. “Newberry Arts Center is thrilled to be hosting the first South Carolina Clay Conference. Instruction in pottery is a large part of our center. Newberry Arts Center is excited to be bringing clay artists together from all over South Carolina and beyond to help build a stronger clay community and move clay forward in South Carolina.”
Also during the weekend, the presenters will have their work for sale along with pieces from the conference attendees.
Also presenting will be artist Terry Jarrard-Dimond. Jarrard-Dimond will be speaking on how it is imperative for artists to have a presence on the web.
Modeled after well-known clay conferences in North Carolina and Alabama, the conference will allow for presenters and attendees to be immersed in conversation on “all things clay.” Included will be a Friday evening reception and Saturday evening BBQ.
The conference will close Sunday morning with an informative lecture on a clay related topic. Professionals, educators, amateurs and students can all enjoy the creative atmosphere which this type of intimate gathering promotes.
WILMINGTON, North Carolina — Events marking 150 years since a string of significant Civil War battles are leaving southeast North Carolina businesses counting the influx of off-season cash.
The StarNews of Wilmington reports (http://bit.ly/1E2pHEt ) that local restaurants and motels enjoyed a boost in business over three weekends in January and February marking battle anniversaries.
The biggest was the Jan. 17-18 re-enactments of the fall of Fort Fisher near Carolina Beach. The fort’s capture by Union forces all but eliminated Wilmington as a crucial supply port for the Confederacy.
Thousands also turned out for battle anniversaries on the first two weekends this month.
Connie Nelson of the Wilmington and Beaches Convention and Visitors Bureau says the impact of the events will become clearer next month when motel room-tax receipts are reported.
For decades, most Americans working in metropolitan areas have gone to work outside city centers — in suburban office parks, stores or plants, not downtown skyscrapers. But as people increasingly choose to live in cities instead of outside them, employers are following.
In recent years, employment in city centers has grown and employment in the surrounding suburban areas has shrunk, a striking change from the years before, according to a report published on Tuesday by City Observatory, a think tank.
The changes are small but represent an important shift in the American workforce. As recently as 2007, employment outside city centers was climbing much faster than inside.
Some cities — especially big ones hemmed in by water, like New York and San Francisco — have held onto a large share of employment near the city center. But now, urban job growth is increasing more quickly in those cities than before. And in other cities — including Chicago; New Orleans; Orlando, Fla.; Charlotte, N.C.; and Milwaukee — employment is growing in the urban core and declining in the suburbs.
We pay close attention to the number of jobs gained or lost. But the location of jobs is just as important — including for making decisions about employment, housing and transportation policies.
“How do you connect people to economic opportunity and the kinds of jobs that can give them secure footing and a path out of poverty?” said Elizabeth Kneebone, a fellow studying metropolitan policy at the Brookings Institution. “The first step is understanding where jobs are located, and can people afford to live where the good job growth is happening.”
The jobs in the heart of cities tend to be highly skilled and high-paying ones, in industries like finance and tech. Working-class jobs, like retail or construction, are likelier to be suburban. So with the recent growth of downtown jobs, the risk is that cities will continue to be havens for the wealthy, and inaccessible to the middle and working classes.
Most jobs are still outside city centers, the result of a retreat from America’s cities that has been going on for decades. At the beginning of the 20th century, people lived and worked in high-density areas and walked where they needed to go. By the 1950s, most lived in suburbs and commuted to work in cities.
In the decades that followed, employers decamped to the suburbs, too. By 1996, only 16 percent of metro area jobs were in a 3-mile radius of downtowns, according to the economists Edward Glaeser and Matthew Kahn.
The recession accelerated the recent decline in urban sprawl. Industries based outside cities, like construction and manufacturing, were hit much harder than urban ones like business services. Jobs disappeared everywhere, but more rapidly outside cities.
The data indicate that more lasting forces are at work. People increasingly desire to live, work, shop and play in the same place, and to commute shorter distances — particularly the young and educated, who are the most coveted employees. So in many cities, both policymakers and employers have been trying to make living and working there more attractive.
Cities are also better able to hold on to jobs than they were before. “It means healthier cities,” said Joe Cortright, who runs City Observatory and is president of Impresa, which does regional economic analysis. “If the urban core is economically weak or fiscally troubled, that creates a burden for a whole metropolitan area.”
City Observatory analyzed a detailed subset of Census Bureau employment data to find what it sees as the beginning of a trend. It covered the 41 largest metropolitan areas for which the data was available, from 2002 to 2011.
Employment in city centers — the 3-mile radius around the central business district — climbed half a percent overall between 2007 and 2011, while employment in the surrounding metropolitan areas declined one-tenth of a percent. In the previous five years, employment in city centers had climbed just 0.1 percent while outside had it climbed 1.2 percent.
Some cities have not followed the trend, like Dallas and Houston, where employment outside the city is still growing faster. In others, like Jacksonville, Fla., and St. Louis, jobs have been declining in both locations, but more quickly outside urban centers.
Cities with a high concentration of urban jobs include Austin, Texas; New Orleans; and Portland, Ore. In Atlanta, Los Angeles and Miami, less than 10 percent of jobs are in the urban core.
The 110-story Willis Tower in downtown Chicago is a microcosm of the shifting geography of jobs. Originally called the Sears Tower, it was built in 1970 by Sears Roebuck Co. But in 1988, Sears left it for a green suburban campus in Hoffman Estates, Ill. Then, in 2013, United Airlines moved its world headquarters and 4,000 employees into the tower. Other big companies like Motorola and Archer Daniels Midland have also recently relocated to downtown Chicago from suburban campuses.
Chicago has gained more creative jobs, international tourism, university centers and residential development. The Chicago Loop, the city’s central business district, has been transformed from a financial district that emptied at 5 p.m. to a seven-day-a-week entertainment zone, said Aaron Renn, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
The changes have been driven in part by employees wanting to live and work downtown, said Renn, who writes the Urbanophile blog: “Today there is more of an expectation on the part of both people and employers that they have to be more flexible and accommodating of their workforce.”
Economists have described the benefits of workers clustering in a dense urban area: For a certain sector of knowledge jobs, ideas bloom from spontaneous, face-to-face interaction in coffee shops or elevators. But what does urban employment growth mean for other types of jobs?
Some say more highly skilled jobs in an urban area will lead to more of all kinds of jobs. For every college graduate who takes a job in an innovation industry, five additional jobs are eventually created in that city for waiters, carpenters and teachers, according to Enrico Moretti, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley. As The New York Times reported in February, New York City is adding jobs at a furious pace, and they range from making software to busing tables.
But others say the shift overwhelmingly favors the highly skilled. “The problem with the general trend is that the poor are being priced out of cities,” said Glaeser, who teaches at Harvard University and wrote “Triumph of the City.”
