Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 19, 1994 TAG: 9407150007
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jeff DeBell
DATELINE: ASHEVILLE, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
``They view it in a play context.''
That's because the city is best known as a destination for tourists.
They flow down the Blue Ridge Parkway. They flock to the nearby Great Smoky Mountains National Park - one of the country's busiest - and Mount Pisgah National Forest. They troop in droves through the famed Biltmore Estate.
In 1991, tourists spent $269 million in Asheville and Buncombe County, which surrounds the city.
Yet, Kendrick points out, tourism accounts for only about 6.5 percent of local employment - far less than manufacturing, which employs some 27 percent of the work force.
Tourism is part of a widely diversified economy, and that's the way officials want it. According to Carolyn Ketchum, head of the Asheville Convention and Visitors Bureau, the aim is to meet the needs of industry for space and support services without damaging the scenic beauty that tourists expect, and to accommodate the thousands of visitors without undue strain on business, industry or the lives of full-time residents.
``Asheville seems like a place that works,'' said Harry Weiss, executive director of the Preservation Society of Asheville and Buncombe County. ``It's a manageable size.''
There are about 275 manufacturing concerns in and around the city, ranging from large employers like ITT Automotive (anti-lock brakes) and BASF Corp. (carpet fibers) down to the firms that employ only handfuls of people.
Asheville serves as the medical center for Western North Carolina. There are three hospitals, including a veterans' facility. It is the region's financial and banking center, with 1992 deposits of nearly $2 billion.
It's a college town; the University of North Carolina-Asheville is here and three other four-year institutions are within 50 miles.
It is a center of government employment, with 12,500 workers as of the third quarter of 1993. it's also a regional crafts center and a burgeoning retirement center.
Movie projects poured $3.5 million into Asheville's economy during fiscal 1993, according to the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau. ``The Last of the Mohicans'' was filmed nearby, as was the dramatic train wreck sequence in ``The Fugitive.''
``Richie Rich,'' a new movie featuring child star Macaulay Culkin, recently completed location filming at the Biltmore Estate.
``The way I see it is, let's move forward on diversification,'' Kendrick said.
That holds for manufacturing as well as other facets of the economy. Traditional ``smokestack'' industry is out as industrial recruitment quarry. Smaller, cleaner industry is in - partly because the area cannot offer large tracts of flat land.
Kendrick said the chamber's economic development people are on the lookout for industry that is ``relatively small, privately held, relatively debt-free and in a growth market position.'' He said the owners of such companies tend to live where their factories are and to be interested in a good labor force, good housing and cultural and educational opportunities for their employees and families.
``In that context,'' he said, ``Asheville becomes very competitive.''
Where it is not competitive is in the contests for the huge, high-profile plants that have recently selected other southeastern sites amid great publicity.
Asheville officials met with one such industrial behemoth, Kendrick said, and listened with dismay to descriptions of how much land and water would be needed, how big a bite would be taken from the local labor force, what infrastructure improvements and financial incentives would be expected.
``After it was over we said, `Can we buy you breakfast?'''
by CNB