CULLOWHEE – Leaders from government, business and nonprofits across Western North Carolina will gather with representatives of the health care profession, the tourism industry and environmental agencies to discuss regional quality of life issues at Lead:WNC, a one-day summit set for Oct. 20, at Western Carolina University.

Summit activities are set for 10 a.m.-5 p.m. at Ramsey Regional Activity Center.

With the theme “Enhancing the Quality of Life in Western North Carolina,” the event is the second annual conference hosted by WCU following a pledge made by Chancellor David O. Belcher in his March 2012 installation address that the university would convene an annual gathering of regional leaders and thinkers to work collaboratively on solving regional issues.

This year’s summit will feature a keynote presentation on “The State of Health Care and Its Effect on the Quality of Life.” Speakers will include Jeff Seraphine, president of the Eastern Group of Lifepoint Health; Harry R. Phillips, chief medical officer for Duke Lifepoint; and Steve Heatherly, CEO of Harris Regional Hospital and Swain Community Hospital.

“Last year, one of our most requested follow-up sessions was on health care,” said conference organizer Tony Johnson, executive director of Millennial Initiatives at WCU. “Because access to quality health care is so critical to quality of life in the region, we saw this as a great opportunity to bring in experts who could speak on the subject from the national, regional and local points of view.”

David B. Fountain, Duke Energy’s state president for North Carolina, will deliver the luncheon address.

Registration for the conference, including lunch, is $69 per person through Oct. 2; $109 afterward. For information or to register, visit http://leadwnc.wcu.edu, call 828-227-3014 or email dshopkins@wcu.edu.

Other sessions include:

• “Creative Arts and the Quality of Life,” with panelists Suzanne Fetcher, president and CEO, McColl Center for Art + Innovation; Beth Fields, executive director, Stecoah Valley Cultural Arts Center; and Thomas “Yona” Wade Waidsutte, director, Chief Joyce Dugan Cultural Arts Center. George Brown, dean of WCU’s College of Fine and Performing Arts, will moderate.

•“Education and the Quality of Life,” with panelists John Bryant, senior director for human resources, Henderson County Public Schools; Susan C. Gottfried, executive director, Evergreen Community Charter School; Bonnie N. Johnson, principal, Buncombe County Early and Middle colleges; Mary Morse, Great Smokies Christian Home Educators; Concha Wyatt, Key School director of teacher training, Carolina Day School; and Michelle Lourcey, chief academic officer at North Carolina Virtual Public Schools. Dale Carpenter, dean of WCU’s College of Education and Allied Professions, will moderate.

•“The Environment and Quality of Life,” with panelists Peter Bates, director of WCU’s Natural Resource Conservation and Management Program and executive director of Forest Stewards; Brent Martin, Southern Appalachia regional director of the Wilderness Society; Julie Mayfield, co-director of Mountain Time; Sharon Fouts Taylor, executive director of the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee; and Bob Wagner, co-director of Mountain True. Jay Gerlach, director of WCU’s master’s degree program in public affairs, will moderate.

•“Health Care and the Quality of Life,” with panelists Melissa McKnight, health education supervisor, Jackson County Department of Public Health; Melanie Batchelor, wellness coordinator/diabetes educator, Harris Regional Hospital; and Frank Castelblanco, director, Division of Regional Services, Mountain Area Health Education Center. Kae Livsey, associate professor in WCU’s School of Nursing, will moderate.

•“Innovation, Technology and the Quality of Life,” with panelists Tony Baldwin, superintendent of Buncombe County Schools; Susan Harper, executive director of the Asheville Community Theatre; Ted Pate, co-founder of Dig Local; Steven Schain, president, Spectra3D Technologies; and Jonathan Bailey, vice president of operations, Mission Health Systems. Edward Wright, director of WCU’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, will moderate.

•“Tourism and the Quality of Life,” with panelists Stephanie Brown, executive director, Asheville Convention and Visitors Bureau; Chris Cavanaugh, president, Magellan Strategy Group; Betty Huskins, executive director, Smoky Mountain Host; Tommy Jenkins, executive director, Macon County Economic Development Commission; Ed Phillips, executive director, Burke County Tourism Development Authority; and Ryan Sherby, executive director, Southwestern Commission. Steve Morse, director of WCU’s Hospitality and Tourism Program, will moderate.

WCU’s partners in presenting the summit are Harris Regional Hospital and Swain Community Hospital, which are Duke LifePoint hospitals.

Approximately 275 business leaders, elected and appointed officials, educators and others attended the inaugural Lead:WNC summit in November, an event centered on the need for a more regional approach to economic and community development in WNC. The 2014 summit has led to additional spin-off conferences focused on tourism, education, and innovation and entrepreneurship.

ASHEVILLE – A year from now, the West Asheville area encompassing Amboy Road, Carrier Park and the French Broad River likely will be a much busier place.

Construction on the first two of what will be more than a dozen single-family homes might be completed. Work is scheduled to begin before the end of the month.

The Smoky Mountain Adventure Center – a one-stop destination for rock-climbing, yoga, coffee, smoothies, beer and rentals for inner tubes, bikes, stand-up paddle boards, canoes and kayaks – could be close to celebrating a year in operation.

Same goes for the Asheville Food Park, a family-friendly operation located at the intersection of State Street and Amboy Road that will feature food trucks, a café and a bar.

“I’m really glad to be part of the revitalization of the Amboy Road corridor, the gateway to the River Arts District,” said Dean Pistor, who owns the Asheville Food Park and is founder and owner of Realty World Marketplace, a downtown Asheville real estate company.

“We’re rebuilding the community from the fabric already there,” he said.

Pistor also cited the near-future arrival of residents as evidence of the area’s changing dynamic.

“Well over 100 homes are under construction within a half mile” of the food park, he said.

But those welcomed changes will also come with some growing pains.

Some Asheville officials and residents, including Pistor, are concerned the area will be dangerous for pedestrians without the addition of sidewalks, crosswalks and light signals. Carrier Park alone draws thousands of people a week during the summer.

A North Carolina Department of Transportationplan exists for the area. But those projects could take decades to finish.

Asheville city staff and at least one Amboy Road business owner are working to build infrastructure to protect pedestrians, and make sure those efforts don’t lag behind the development already going on.

“It’s embarrassing to see people trying to traverse” the area now, said Pistor, who said he travels there five to eight times a day.

The plans for pedestrians in the Amboy Road neighborhood are simultaneously “loose and definite,” said Asheville City Councilman Jan Davis.

The city’s plan composes the “loose” part of that description, Davis said.

“We lack a clearly defined small-area plan,” Davis said. “But thought’s been given to it. It’s on our radar and it’s happening quickly, with more proactivity.”

Flashing lights, connecting sidewalks and crosswalks are being considered, Davis said.

City officials have requested about $2 million in grant money this year from the Buncombe County Tourism Authority for pedestrian projects, said Stephanie Monson Dahl, Asheville’s Riverfront Redevelopment Office director.

If they receive it, roughly $25,000 will be used to make crossing Amboy Road safer.

“This is a little project that will make a big difference,” Monson Dahl said.

It would be a crosswalk on Amboy Road with a flashing signal, Americans with Disabilities Act-accessible sidewalk ramps on both sides of the street and a formal river access point inside Amboy Road Park, Monson Dahl said.

The crosswalk would connect the adventure center with the park, she said.

RiverLink is building the access point, said Karen Cragnolin, executive director of the Asheville nonprofit organization.

“People are already getting in the river at the location across from the center,” Monson Dahl said. “And it’s not safe.”

RiverLink works for the economic and environmental revitalization of the French Broad River.

The nonprofit received a $25,000 grant last month from the Pigeon River Fund, said Cragnolin. The fund is a program of the Asheville-based Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, a nonprofit organization.

That money will be used to build stairs leading to the river, like those that exist at Pearson Bridge, Cragnolin said.

Those stairs also will reduce riverbank erosion caused by people entering the river there, Cragnolin said.

The plan is to finish the project before winter, she said.

Stuart Cowles, who owns the adventure center and downtown’s ClimbMax Climbing, said he hopes the center will open at the beginning of October, with the grand opening celebration tentatively slated for later next month or early November. Cowles is helping with the crosswalk project.

Exact dates won’t be known until Cowles and his team clear the final hurdles in the city’s permitting and inspection process, he said.

“I see (the center) as one of the anchor points of the River Arts District,” Cowles said. “It will bring the community a little more tightly together.”

Part of the state Department of Transportation’s current plan for the area includes widening Amboy Road between 2022 and 2025 at a cost of roughly $47 million, said Lyuba Zuyeva, French Broad River Metropolitan Planning Organization director for the Land of Sky Regional Council.

That is a nonprofit, multicounty, local government, planning and development nonprofit organization.

But Zuyeva said work on the road-widening project could begin as soon as 2021. An organization board meeting is scheduled for Thursday at which they will discuss the project, she said.

City officials intend to partner with state Department of Transportation officials during the project to improve pedestrian infrastructure in the area, Monson Dahl said.

“It’s important to get going and help people walk (the area),” Pistor said.

New residents also will be adding to the foot traffic, Pistor said.

The 20 home sites under development on Amboy Road were the subject of a public meeting held at RiverLink Tuesday night.

Asheville developer Jay Fiano said he plans to build about 12 homes within the next year.

Each of them will be three-bedroom, two-and-half bathroom houses with two car garages. They will be energy efficient and run 1,500 square feet to 1,700 square feet, Fiano said.

Fiano’s goal is that each house will list in the mid- to upper $300,000 range, he said. Though the market will dictate the final prices.

Carrier Park already is the city’s busiest due to the number of amenities within it and the greenway that passes through it, said Debbie Ivester, assistant director of the Asheville Park and Recreation Department.

“We do not keep record on the number visitors in parks, however we know that during peak season several thousand people use Carrier Park each week,” Ivester said.

Funding-dependent future projects in the park include improvements to the velodrome, lighting and restrooms, she said.

Jason Brownlee, cofounder and co-owner of French Broad Boatworks, a wooden- and fiberglass-boat building and tour company on Amboy Road, said the pace of development is not “a bad thing.”

But “the roadway is not accommodating to pedestrians,” Brownlee said. “The city is going to have to address having more pedestrians entering into the equation.

Development occurring in Amboy Road area of West Asheville

• 20 home sites on Amboy Road by Asheville developer, Jay Fiano.
• More than 100 homes under construction within a half mile of the intersection of State Street and Amboy Road, according to Dean Pistor, founder and owner of Realty World Marketplace, a downtown Asheville real estate company.
• Smoky Mountain Adventure Center – a one-stop destination for rock-climbing, yoga, coffee, smoothies, beer and rentals for inner tubes, bikes, stand-up paddle boards, canoes and kayaks. Opening could occur within weeks, depending on Asheville city inspection and permitting requirements.
• Asheville Food Park – a family-friendly operation located at the intersection of State Street and Amboy Road that will feature food trucks, a café and a bar.
• Pedestrian-friendly infrastructure improvements by Asheville officials, North Carolina Department of Transportation officials and local businesses.
• Construction by RiverLink of an access point to the French Broad River across the street from the adventure center at 173 Amboy Road.
• Widening of Amboy Road by Department of Transportation officials that could occur between 2021 and 2025.
• Future improvements to the Carrier Park velodrome, lighting and restrooms, depending on funding.