April 12, 2024 • 54 mins
From its industrial past to a future teeming with eco-tourism and innovation, Canton's story is one of resilience and transformation.
In this episode, I sit down with Nick Scheuer, Canton’s Town Manager, and we delve into the captivating story of Chestnut Mountain Park, a sprawling 450-acre sanctuary helping to reshape Canton's economic and recreational landscape. We navigate the currents of Chestnut Mountain's impact on local businesses and the town's identity, illuminating how embracing outdoor recreation is propelling Canton into a new era of prosperity and purpose. We take a peek at the visionary redevelopment plans for the iconic mill site and emphasize the importance of community engagement and cultural preservation.
*Part of the special Made by Mountains Collaboration Series
Photo Credit: Visit NC Smokies
Made by Mountains
Seth Alvo Berm Peak You Tube Channel
SAHC
Pisgah SORBA
Elevated Trail Design
Chestnut Mountain Park
Equinox
Canton, NC
BearWaters Brewing
In this episode, I sit down with Nick Scheuer, Canton’s Town Manager, and we delve into the captivating story of Chestnut Mountain Park, a sprawling 450-acre sanctuary helping to reshape Canton's economic and recreational landscape. We navigate the currents of Chestnut Mountain's impact on local businesses and the town's identity, illuminating how embracing outdoor recreation is propelling Canton into a new era of prosperity and purpose. We take a peek at the visionary redevelopment plans for the iconic mill site and emphasize the importance of community engagement and cultural preservation.
*Part of the special Made by Mountains Collaboration Series
Photo Credit: Visit NC Smokies
Made by Mountains
Seth Alvo Berm Peak You Tube Channel
SAHC
Pisgah SORBA
Elevated Trail Design
Chestnut Mountain Park
Equinox
Canton, NC
BearWaters Brewing
Mike Andress
Host, Exploration Local
828-551-9065
mike@explorationlocal.com
Podcast Website
Facebook
Instagram: explorationlocal
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From its industrial past to a future teeming with
ecotourism and innovation.
Canton's story is one ofresilience and transformation.
In this episode, I sit downwith Nick Scheuer, canton's Town
Manager, and we delve into thecaptivating story of Chestnut
Mountain Park, which is asprawling 450-acre sanctuary
helping to reshape Canton'seconomic and recreational
(00:21):
landscape.
We navigate the currents ofChestnut Mountain's impact on
local businesses and the town'sidentity, illuminating how
embracing outdoor recreation ispropelling Canton into a new era
of prosperity and purpose.
Our exploration doesn't stopthere.
We dissect the ambitiousredevelopment plans for the
iconic mill site and emphasizethe importance of community
(00:42):
engagement and culturalpreservation.
Canton is not just apicturesque destination but a
beacon of communitycollaboration and innovative
growth.
This episode is a testimony tothe power of resilience and
adaptation in rewriting a town'snarrative.
Join us as we witness Canton'sjourney from past to present and
we peek into the promisingchapters of its future.
(01:04):
I'll see you on the other side.
You're listening to ExplorationLocal, a podcast designed to
explore and celebrate the peopleand places that make the Blue
Ridge and Southern AppalachianMountains special and unique.
My name is Mike Andrus, thehost of Exploration Local.
(01:26):
Join us on our journey toexplore these mountains and
discover how they fuel thespirit of adventure.
We encourage you to wander far,but explore local.
Let's go Well, nick, I cannotthank you enough for driving
over today.
Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Thanks for having me Happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
You are the town manager, or at least as of last
week you're the town manager.
We're going to say a little bitmore about that towards the end
.
But what does a town manager do?
What's the function of a townmanager?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, great question.
So my background is in planningand before I came to the town
of Canton that was my workexperience, so I think I asked
those same questions prior tocoming to this job.
But it basically you'rebasically running the day to day
operations of the town.
So everything from police andfire operations to water
(02:15):
production, wastewater treatment, tax collection, finance, sort
of all the inner workings of theway a town works are under the
purview of a town manager, andin North Carolina traditionally
the setup is a kind of a managercouncil form of government.
So I'm appointed and serve atthe pleasure of my board, but
then pretty much everyone undermy position is then a hired
(02:38):
position.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Okay, and how long have you been in this role, Nick
?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I've been with the town of Canton since 2018.
I've been town manager for thelast three years.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
One of the things I love to sort of set the stage
with, because some of ourlisteners many of our listeners
are right here, but there's alsomany listeners that are in
areas all around the country,the nation, the world, really,
so they may not know your story.
Just a quick rundown.
I mean we're talking about in04 and 05, the town of Canton
had two major storms back toback.
You had the.
(03:06):
We've had the recession, covid,fred basically decimated in
2021.
Then we have the mill closingin 2023.
I mean, it's one thing for onething to happen to a community,
but we're talking about over thelast 20 years, two decades, a
lot has happened and yet thepeople seem resilient, and so I
(03:26):
love to use that sort of as abackdrop and just talk about the
resiliency of the people, thethings that they've had to face,
the things that you've had todo in terms of your providing
leadership as you've movedthrough some of these, at least
since 2018.
Let's set it up there and thenwe'll kind of move into why this
is so important that we'retalking about today.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah, absolutely so, as I like to give this quote.
My mayor is known for beingable to give these anecdotal
quotes.
But after the mill closureannouncement happened, there
were some small earthquakes thathappened in Haywood County and
nothing very impactful, butenough to make the news make the
(04:06):
news.
And we were in a meetingtalking about sort of how we
transitioned from the millclosure and our mayor is on
record as saying, after we foundout about the earthquakes, that
Canton is a locust plague awayfrom a revelation bingo card.
And as funny as that is, andyou know, it's the truth, and
Canton has seen a lot in thelast 25 years and I think what
makes this special story is justhow resilient those people are
(04:28):
and the fact that, despite allthe things that you just listed
of, you know culture and pridebased around you know this town
that's, you know, 15, 20 mileswest of Asheville.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Wow.
So, you know something that yousaid really I was thinking
about this even last night thismorning, just kind of preparing
for for this interview that italmost seems like your best days
are ahead, like you'rerewriting the story of Canton.
But it really seems like, Imean, excuse me, your best days
are definitely ahead, but itdefinitely seems like you're
like we're in the middle of youwriting the town of Canton, the
people of Canton, rewriting thestory of the town, which is
(05:13):
amazing to be a part of, I wouldimagine.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, it's very humbling, I think, when I
actually step back and kind oftake perspective on that and
you'll hear me use some flowerylanguage in the podcast, but I
think you know we would considerit a manifest destiny moment.
The town was formed exclusivelyaround manufacturing and you
had a mill that was created 115years ago.
It's the reason that we haveour downtown sort of historic
(05:37):
district.
It's the reason why we have allthe housing stock and all the
density.
I mean, the mill is the originstory for Canton and so now that
that's gone we're pivoting andwe've got to look elsewhere and
figure out sort of what thatCanton 2.0 is, and it's scary
and exciting and interesting andunbelievably complex.
(05:58):
But you're right, that'sexactly where we are right now.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Which is really a good segue into really what
we're going to talk about forthe lion's share of it today is
how do you take the naturalamenities, the natural assets
around you that become the newplace?
So there's a new sense ofplace-based economics and it
really started with a reallyphenomenal story that could have
gone a couple of differentdirections with the property.
So we're talking about ChestnutMountain.
(06:22):
There's a lot to unpack here.
There is, but I think one thingthat'd be really cool is like
let's talk about what it couldhave been, what the direction it
was going, because that wouldhave been far different than
where we are today.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
That's right, yeah, so this parcel is 450 acres.
It's about a mile and a quarterfrom our downtown.
Historically it was used forcattle grazing and agriculture.
It was also a place I think youknow I have got a lot of public
work staff and people that workfor the town that actually
there was a time when you couldpay $100 a year or some monetary
(06:57):
number and basically be able toride dirt bikes or hunt, or you
know it's been used by thecommunity in informal ways for a
long time.
In the early 2000s there weresome investors that came in and
it was slated to actually be aNASCAR training facility.
That's crazy.
So the Melodome was shuttingdown in Asheville, the dirt
track there in the River ArtsDistrict so they were looking
(07:17):
for a new location to be able torun NASCARs and so there were
preliminary designs andengineering done.
There were soil, roads cut,Property was clear, cut in a lot
of places and timbered.
There was a large multimilliondollar bridge that was built at
the base of the mountain andthen for various reasons that
(07:38):
project was shuttered and it waskind of left basically high and
dry and then a few years laterthere was the prospect of an
indoor ski slope being builtthere.
So there's been lots ofdifferent concepts and ideas
about what the property could be, but none of those really came
to fruition and so it sat forabout 20 years.
And it was through a wildlifecorridor study done by the
(08:00):
Wildlands Network that waslooking at animals migrating
from Sandy Mush to PisgahNational Forest that this was
actually targeted by SouthernAppalachian Highlands
Conservancy as a potentialproperty to acquire.
So their model typically is tofundraise and acquire property
and then turn that over to landmanagers such as the town of
(08:23):
Canton to basically preserve andhold conservation easements on.
So their model typically ismore conservation-based and this
was one of the first projectsthat they worked on that was
that marriage of sort ofconservation and recreation,
which is the future, and reallyamazing, unbelievable partners
(08:44):
to work with just from start tofinish.
Can't speak highly enough aboutthem.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Oh, that's great, and so this parcel of land was just
gifted, right?
Speaker 2 (08:54):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
To the town of Canton , I mean, and that's not an
inexpensive proposition?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
four million and so they approached us in 2019.
So I'd been with the town forabout a year, I was serving as
planning director, assistanttown manager, and they basically
Honey Meritor came to usthrough Southern Appalachian and
asked hey, would you guys beinterested in acquiring this
property?
And we looked at a map andrealized it was a mile and a
quarter from downtown and hadreally interesting terrain and
good connectivity, good you know, basically sort of good
(09:27):
infrastructure and assetsalready on the ground.
So it was a no brainer for thetown and so we very quickly
agreed to that SAHC sort of setoff to start the fundraising
process.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
You had other people that started to come alongside
you at the very same time.
So we know Seth Alvo, and a lotof mountain bikers will know
the name.
They'll know Seth Bike Hacks,and now it's the Burn Peak, and
so they'll know all of that inhis channel.
But there were other thingsthat were sort of happening
along the way of that too, andso the funding for this is
really interesting because it'sa lot of different sources.
And so I wonder if you can kindof unpack that a little bit too
(10:00):
.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Of course.
So, you know, as we started tomove through process of working
with SAHC, it was, you know,clear from the outset that we
were going to need to do a lotof sort of high-level master
planning to inform all theactivities that were going to go
on on the mountain, to inform,you know, to be informed by the
conservation easements, to makesure that you know the end uses
(10:21):
for the property were going toimprove water quality and
improve the natural amenitiesthat were already there.
So as we started to workthrough that master planning
process, you know we knew thatwe wanted to create sort of a
multi-use park, something thatwould accommodate all levels of
hikers and bikers and familiesand just something that could
really serve our community.
(10:41):
So as we started to look at themaster planning process, we
were having some conversationswith our local advocacy group,
piscisorba, and they had been inconversation with Seth Alvo,
and so, if you don't know Seth,he's got a huge social media,
youtube presence and at thattime he was looking to basically
crowdfund a free public bikepark in Western North Carolina
(11:10):
and so, without throwing anyother municipalities under the
bus, he had gone to a number ofcities and towns in the region
and had sort of proposed thisidea and, for varying reasons,
they said no.
And so when we were inconversation with Pisces Sorba,
they made that connection withSeth.
We actually met on the propertyand within a day had come to an
agreement.
So we were funding through somegrants and some local
(11:31):
partnerships.
We were funding all the masterplanning and design, and so the
agreement was we'll fund thedesign for Byrne Park and you
crowdfund it.
And that's exactly whathappened, and you crowdfund it.
And that's exactly whathappened.
And so as we're working throughall the community engagement
processes and working throughthe master planning and the
trail master plans and goingthrough the RFQs and identifying
(11:52):
all these firms, he's in thebackground, crowdfunding
basically the entirety of ByrnePark.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
And I think for us what made it even more amazing
was that in the middle of all,that is when Tropical Storm Fred
came, and so as a town manager,it would have been very
difficult for me to make thatjustification to pay or to use
tax dollars to fund somethinglike Byrne Park when we're
looking at $20, $30, $40 millionworth of facility damage just
(12:20):
in Canton alone.
So to have him be able toincubate that first phase of the
project was just.
It's one of the primary reasonsthat Chestnut exists today, and
so he was such a pleasure towork with and such an amazing
process to go through.
I'll never forget.
As a planner, I'm more sensitiveto some of these things, but in
(12:41):
the typical planning process,you know, you do a lot of public
input.
You want your people to giveinput and talk about what they
want, but it's pretty rare, andso the numbers are normally
pretty low.
For your normal public inputsurvey, we'd be lucky to have,
you know, 50, 100 surveyresponses.
We had 4,000 people respond tothe public survey process for
(13:02):
Byrne Park and Chestnut Mountainand I think that's just
reflective of A you know theneed and desire for that in our
region, but then also just the,the sort of the, the spread and
influence that that Seth has umin the mountain bike community.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Oh, that's huge, and I have to ask too as a follow-up
so, of those 4,000 or sorespondents, how many of those
were people that were sort of inCanton?
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Um, I would say in our region it's probably 50, 50,
but you know we had peoplechiming in from Eastern Europe.
I mean it was everywhere.
So you know, exciting, I think,for us to sort of understand.
You know that this haspotentially has some global
implications and helped usunderstand.
You know there are going to bepeople that are going to want to
travel here and we can get intolater sort of the economics of
(13:47):
it.
But that place-based economicdevelopment, especially in the
mountains, with the amenitiesthat we have, it's huge and so
starting to leverage thoseopportunities is critical,
especially consideringeverything that's going on for
us.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah.
So for people that aren'tfamiliar, when we talk about
Chestnut Mountain, we talk aboutit's multi-use.
So we have not just mountainbikers that are out there, but
there's hikers too.
We have not just mountainbikers that are out there, but
there's hikers too.
The park itself I wonder if youcould sort of break down, give
us sort of this mental image ofwhat this bike park is.
The access road's up, thetrail's coming down, and it
really sounds like it'ssomething for everybody.
(14:22):
It's not just your most radperson out there just trying to
send it to the next level.
This is somebody who's justgetting into this as well.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah, absolutely so.
The larger park is the 450-acrepark, is Chestnut Mountain, so
that's the nature park and thatincludes all the hiking-only
trails, all the single-directionmountain biking traditional
kind of downhill trails.
That includes Berm Park, whichis sort of a mini bike park
within Chestnut Mountain.
The way it's set up is thatthere's a primary climbing trail
(14:50):
.
It's wide enough for familiesto take jogging strollers up.
It's wide enough foraccommodate adaptive cycles.
It is very much just amulti-use single direction in
areas where sort of userconflict would be a problem with
a mountain biker going down andhikers going up.
(15:10):
And it's a spine trail.
So it starts at the bottom, atthe parking lot right off 1923.
And if you take that you'lltake it all the way to the top
of the mountain.
So there's about 1100 footelevation difference between top
and bottom.
So good, good elevation, goodtopo for for mountain bike
trails and things like that.
So you've got you basicallyhave a three quarter mile pedal
(15:32):
or push or walk or hike.
That gets you up to berm park,gets you up to that plateau
where that NASCAR training ringwas going to be.
When you're up there you canstart to visualize it because
you can see these areas thatwere clear cut and now have sort
of these low jack pines growing.
But berm park then is basicallylike I said, it's a mini bike
park, so they would call it astacked loop system.
(15:53):
So you've got trails that are aquarter to maybe half mile at
the most and basically varyingdifficulties, from a strider
bike loop with no elevation lossand some skinnies and little
features for kids that are on,you know, basically balance
bikes to start out on All theway up to a double black trail
(16:16):
that has a telephone pole justwedged in the ground and you
know 20 plus foot jumps and biggaps and drops and all kinds of
stuff.
So you know kind of everythingfor everybody.
And I jokingly say I've got aneight and 11 year old and
obviously they were, you know,four and five and seven and
eight when we were starting thisthing, but I kind of just built
(16:36):
it selfishly for them, becausetrying to teach kids how to
mountain bike in Western NorthCarolina on our inherited horse
and logging trails is not easy,and so creating a place where
progression, safe progression,is built in is huge for our
region, and I think that's oneof the areas that makes Chestnut
so special, because that samementality goes towards the
(17:00):
greater trail network as well.
So there's, you know, greens,green mountain bike trails that
are just, you know, flow trailsthat are easy and you know, safe
and have long sight lines.
You know, all the way to doubleblack stuff off the top, wow,
50% of it's still above my paygrade, wow.
So again, just having thatprogression built in, so it's
about 18 miles total of trail.
(17:21):
There are more mountain biketrails than hiking trails, but
as far as distance goes, it'ssplit almost in half, wow.
So there's opportunities for tohike and bike together, but
there's lots of opportunities toseparate those users, and
that's something that we see inDuPont, we see it in Bank Creek.
Like user conflict is a realthing, and so one of the
(17:42):
beauties of designing a parkfrom scratch is you get to try
to sort of accommodate thosetype of issues before they even
exist, and you can see it whenyou're at the park.
Try to sort of accommodatethose type of issues before they
even exist, and you can see itwhen you're at the park.
Like, just interactions thatyou have with hikers and other
bikers are very positive, justbecause I think people feel like
everyone has a place there andfeels comfortable.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Oh, that's so good, wow, well, and with 2,000 people
, 4,000 people all across theworld that were chiming in on
this to support it, and then2,000 of those being just with
Canton alone, I mean, imaginethis mountain bike community,
the hiking community, everybodyhave just really embraced it.
So a moment ago you talkedabout the economic impact, and
I'd love to kind of tap intothat just a tiny bit, or
actually more than a tiny bit.
(18:23):
But before we do, you had thisthinking just wasn't, it just
didn't happen by chance.
I mean, you had I think it wasEquinox was kind of a part of
the planning for this, and thenyou had some really experienced
trail builders that also helpedbridge the design into something
that was reality too.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yes, yeah, I'm so thankful we had incredible
partners, and that's areoccurring theme, I think, just
as part of the Canton storybeyond just Chestnut Mountain in
general, is there's no way thatour small community would be
able to make it through all thiswithout being able to leverage
those amazing partnerships andrelationships, whether that's
our legislators or philanthropicorganizations like Dogwood, or
(19:00):
conservation entities like SHC,our county partners.
I mean, there's just been, it'sbeen a huge collaboration, and
so working with Equinox wasabsolutely incredible, and that
was one of the things that weknew from the very beginning.
Because of the relationshipwith the conservancy and because
of the conservation easements Alot of the property was funded
(19:22):
through land and water funddollars we knew that we were
going to have to be very carefuland deliberate and cognizant of
sort of those implications andimpacts, and so, having a firm
like Equinox who is in thebusiness of doing these sort of
master plans and masterconservation plans or recreation
(19:43):
plans, I think their experiencelevel was comforting for SHC
and subsequently for us, and sothey did an incredible job of
helping us navigate all that andvision what could be possible
on the site, so that theyhandled the master trail or,
excuse me, the master plan andthen elevated trail design was
who did our master trail planand then who has built all the
(20:06):
trails on the mountain up todate?
And elevated trail design againunbelievable to work with.
Peter Mills is the owner andthe guys that work for him and
the Calibor work that they do ispretty unparalleled.
You know, sort of level ofcommunication and even just the
activation of these projects aswe have brought new trails
(20:27):
online, you know broughtadvocacy groups out for days and
we're continuing to work onsort of creating kind of that
local support group, the Friendsof Chestnut Mountain or
whatever that looks like.
I think 2024 will be the yearwhen we try to start to initiate
that.
But we've got Elevated is oncontract even as of now to do
trail maintenance there.
(20:48):
So they're there six to sevendays a month with many
excavators and just keepingeverything sort of in tip top
shape.
So can't, cannot speak highlyenough of them and the caliber
of their work.
And you you mean you don't haveto ride there very long to
realize that the stuff they'redoing is just kind of next level
and so it's exciting to seethat come, come to Western North
(21:10):
Carolina.
They've built amazing stuff allover, really all over the world
but all over the country.
So to see them get to executeat that level at Chestnut was
such a pleasure and, you know,got to been able to be a part of
all that for the last few yearshas been a huge joy for me, I
bet.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
And for your whole family it sounds like, and the
whole family, yeah, I mean, andfor your whole family, it sounds
like the whole family.
Yeah, yeah, that's.
That's an important piece.
So the economic impact piece,before we sort of kind of move
on what has this done, what doyou see it doing?
And just really, what is theoverall impact the town of
Canton, to the community ofCanton and to this whole region
economically?
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Well, I think, I mean , I think we've got to look at
this at the state too.
I mean, I throw out a lot ofstats when we talk about outdoor
recreation, but outdoor recoutpaces financial, valued at
$3.5 billion a year.
You know, I know that there wasa study done on the economic
(22:14):
impact of biking and climbingand maybe paddling in Pisgah and
Anahala and that study needs tobe redone.
But I mean, I think theregional impact was, you know,
$8 to $11 million a year orsomething like that, just for
those activities within a verydefined area.
So I think, from the beginning,you know, we knew that the
messaging and that's just theway it is, I think, with any of
(22:37):
these projects is that you're,you know, your messaging can
change for different audiences,right?
Like some people are going tocare more about quality of life,
some people are going to caremore about the economic impact,
and so we have to make sure thatwe're able to speak to each of
those, because they're all valid, they're all important.
Like I said before, you know,one of the beautiful things of
(22:58):
getting to build a brand newpark from scratch you know,
starting in 2020, 2021, is justthat we get to look at what
other places have done and learnfrom those.
So one of the things that wesaid was we want to measure sort
of economic impact from thevery beginning.
We don't want chestnut tobecome this really valuable
(23:18):
popular thing and then, 10 yearsfrom now, we're like we should
do an economic impact study.
So we've had trail counters onthe ground, kind of within the
first two or three months ofhaving the park open, and that's
been really cool to be able tosee as we add, you know, each
trail, each piece, each amenityin the park.
You know we can actually seethis.
You know, basically we canmeasure sort of the impact of
(23:42):
each of those.
And then at the same time,we've got sort of a community
input study that you can do onlyif you're at the park.
So we've got QR codes on yardsigns kind of throughout the
park basically, and so we've gottrail counters and then we've
got a user input study.
And what we're doing now iswe're taking that data and we're
(24:02):
mirroring it and we'requantifying.
You know what's the economicimpact of Chestnut Mountain, and
so we don't have any kind offirm numbers on there, including
lodging, but right now we'reseeing, you know, 50 to 60
unique users there every day andpeople are spending a
significant amount of money.
So I think we're comfortablesort of saying right now that,
(24:25):
excluding lodging, people arespending three or four million
million in Canton and in HaywoodCounty after they visit
Chestnut Mountain, and that'sexcluding the lodging portion of
it.
So the impact is significant.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
That is significant, so 50 to 60 unique users a day.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Yeah, and that number continues to grow Again.
It's like when the park opened,it was literally just Byrne
Park, so much more of a noveltything, whereas now, you know,
we've got 18 miles of trails,we've got a couple more things
to build out there as far aspicnic pavilions, and we're
doing a kid's bicycle playgroundat the bottom, but all the
trail mileage and everythingelse is done.
You know, we completed the lasttrail, I believe in November of
(25:09):
2023.
And so we're.
You know those numbers aregoing to only you know, increase
.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
That is really incredible, nick.
So if I have if I'm looking atthe statistics right 50 to 60
unique people, so that's on aMonday, yet 50.
Now if that same person comesback on a Thursday, are they
counted in part of this unique?
Speaker 2 (25:26):
No, they're not.
Yeah, that's what makes us evenmore incredible, I mean
exponentially, that's.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
that is enormous, it's big.
I mean.
That is far beyond what I eventhought of even coming into this
interview to be honest with you.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
And then you start to think about how you extrapolate
that out to the food, thelodging, the bike shops, the all
the other stuff, the brewerytrips, the breweries, everything
you know, and I think that'sone of the things that is
helping.
You know, as we you know we hadthat obviously the mill closure
and we can we viewed sort of alot of our retail downtown
locations.
(25:59):
Is potentially some of thecanaries in the mine right, like
they're going to be the onesyou know you've got a thousand
people less working a quartermile from our you know mom and
pop burger shop.
What does that look like?
What is it?
What are the implications ofthat?
And so I think having thingslike Chestnut, having people
coming into town and visitingand patronizing those things,
(26:21):
has sort of softened that blow alittle bit.
So exciting to see thatcontinue to grow.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Chestnut Mountain is a phenomenal facility.
Obviously, we can see theeconomic impact that it's
bringing in, but there's so muchmore around us and around you
in there in Canton.
Before we go there, though, theresidents, the people because
you're living amongst them,you're working amongst them,
eating amongst them, recreatingAre they seeing the economic
impact of this?
Like, do they really feel it?
(26:48):
I mean, they probably noticethere's more activity, but do
they get a sense that there iseconomic benefit here?
Speaker 2 (26:54):
I would say yes, but I think you know at this point
in time, for most people it isanecdotal.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
You know we've got our local brewery owners told us
you know they've got a couplelocations in Haywood County and
the Maggie Valley location andthe Canton location.
Maggie Valley alwaysoutperformed Canton, kind of two
to one, and then the weekendthat Chestnut Mountain opened it
sort of went one to one and hasleveled off there since.
So you see a lot of cars withbike racks, you know, and in
(27:22):
parking lots and at restaurantsaround town.
But I think we're excited toreally be able to quantify this
data, to start to say that youknow and then start to inform
our community about what's goingon.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
I bet I mean that's the land planner in you, that's
the planner.
I mean you're not a free spiritkind of.
I mean I'm sure you are whenyou're writing, but I mean you
just come across as a verythoughtful, very methodical.
You're a planner.
That's where your background is, and so the data is going to
speak volumes to you, I'm sure,and it's going to take a little
bit of time to collect that data, but the initial data coming in
says I mean gosh, if you couldjust talk about that one brewery
as just a micro example.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Two to one, one to one now holding off and however
many people go to Catalucci andare probably right by there, I
mean it's not just the skiing,but for four, or leverage that
opportunity and open up, youknow, amenities and shops and
things like that that can.
They can cater to that.
(28:17):
So it's an exciting thing towatch.
Oh, that's great.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
All right.
So let's a little bit of a hardpivot, but it's all connected.
You have a new role, that'sright.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Right Ever since last Thursday and let's set up your
new role.
And then I got a bunch of soexcited to be transitioning into
that, as you know sort offuture financial implications,
climate change implications.
It's a huge opportunity andsomething that I'm really
excited about and something thatI think plays to my strengths
but helps us, as a town, makesure that we are excelling in
all areas.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
And in some ways you're already excelling because
you talk about the environment,you talk about the impact
you've shared with me.
You know a couple of times,just when the plant closed down
just how quickly I don't know ifquickly is the right word, but
just it's interesting how theriver is sort of healing itself
the Pigeon River is sort ofrunning right through you and
how much it's cleaning up.
That's just a small example.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
I love to give.
The Wildlife ResourceCommission did a study.
I think it was either, and Iwon't get all of it exactly
right, but it was.
I believe it was 45 days beforethe mill closed.
They did a study.
Basically, they were looking ataquatic life.
45 days before the mill closedthey did that same study, I
think within 15 days of theclosure, and there was like 15x
(30:14):
the aquatic life, or somethinglike that, already in the river.
So the river is resilient and Ibelieve you know the river is a
huge part of Canton's future.
Having the opportunity to takea step back and look at you know
what are our priorities, whatdo we want to do for the future?
How do we feel about all thesenatural amenities?
You know Canton, I think, forso long was a manufacturing town
(30:36):
and that's all that wasnecessary.
You know the payroll for theplant itself was $100 million a
year.
They bought $250 plus millionworth of wood chips from our
region and so all of a suddenyou remove that sort of from the
equation.
It creates quite a void.
So I'm very thankful that wehave amenities like the Pigeon,
(30:57):
like the Blue Ridge Parkway Imean if you look at Black Balsam
, skinny Dip Falls, graveyardFields, a lot of Shining Rock,
wilderness, east and West Forkof the Pigeon River those are
all technically Canton andthat's something that we're not
leveraging at this point in timeat all and taking advantage of
or protecting, and so there's ahuge opportunity there.
(31:18):
It would be a very differentstory if Canton was, you know,
in the middle of eastern NorthCarolina and had no natural
amenities and no urbanized area,no tourism.
You know, this conversationmight look a lot different if we
were in that boat.
Again, future is bright.
I mean, canton is astaggeringly beautiful place.
Haywood County is incredible.
(31:40):
Yeah, in a lot of ways it isoff the radar at this point in
time.
It's the highest mean elevationcounty east of the Mississippi,
so we have big mountains, we'vegot big watersheds.
I mean it's a special place.
So I think you know we want tomake sure that we're providing
opportunities for people toenjoy that.
(32:01):
You know, locals andpotentially visitors alike.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, I mean a special place with a really
special people.
Yes, that is special place witha really special people.
Yes, that is something that hasalways resonated with me we
were talking earlier about.
We've only lived here for about13 and a half years, but a lot
of our early connection withthat area was through sports,
and so we could just see justthe community that was there and
(32:23):
the people that came togetherand it was beyond just we're
going to go support our localhigh school team or middle
school team or whatever.
I've never been to a place everin Western North Carolina that
I've seen a basketball gympacked out for a women or girls
basketball game at four o'clockin the afternoon.
I mean, it's just a smallexample, I know, but it's just
the heart of the people and justhow much this is home for them.
(32:46):
I mean it's their whole livesjust surrounded by this place.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
It's a really special place, I think.
You know, coming from,obviously coming from the
outside in, it's taken me a longtime to sort of wrap my head
around.
You know all the, all theshared history and sort of the
sense of community that isCanton, and that is something
that we will not lose.
You know, that's our line inthe sand.
You really can't recreate thatauthenticity.
And so making sure that our,that community is protected and
(33:13):
making sure that that culturestays the same is a huge part
and a huge priority for us.
But it's also a hugeresponsibility.
You know we are looking at whatis Canton 2.0 at this point in
time and we want to make surethat we get it right and we sort
of have one opportunity to dothat.
You know, making sure thatwe're not losing what makes
Canton special is something thatwe, our board, you know, talks
(33:37):
about constantly.
We will have to continue towork on and you know, ask me in
two years what that looks likeand maybe I can tell you.
But in a lot of ways thatgentrification bubble is getting
sort of removed from Canton.
You remove the paper mill andyou know the nuisance and the
smell and all those things andwe have a relatively short
amount of time to sort of masterplan and make sure that we're
(34:00):
in the right position and doingthe right things to sort of
navigate all the complexitiesthat come with what's next for?
Speaker 1 (34:10):
the town.
So before we move away from thetown and the people, like the
actual physical infrastructureof the town, it has to be one of
the most beautiful littlecommunities in western North
Carolina.
It reminds me a lot of thingslike going up into West Virginia
towards Snowshoe to go skiing,or Stanton or Virginia or places
like that.
It just has a really truemountain feel, the architecture,
(34:31):
the history, like you said,115-year-old plant, so obviously
you're going to have historythere, historical places, but
you don't see a lot of closeddown places.
I mean there's a lot ofbusinesses in every storefront
it seems, and they seem to bechanging and growing too.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
That's huge kudos to our board and some of the
previous boards.
I think in the early 2000soccupancy was at like 10%
downtown, so we've seen thatreally grow and they've worked
hard to sort of grow that backfrom what it was.
But I mean it's always been avibrant community and, you're
right, it is naturally a verybeautiful place.
(35:08):
I think one of the things thatI like to point out is you know,
asheville is in a very largeriver valley and so in order for
if you're in you know the cityof Asheville, in order for you
to get to sort of any mountains,any hiking trails, anything
like that, you know you'rehaving to go a decent distance
where, as in Canton, I mean itis truly a mountain town.
I mean you know there aremultiple sort of you know a
(35:32):
thousand plus foot elevationmountains, you know all around,
and so I think it's, yeah, it'sa special place.
It feels much more of atraditional mountain town.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
So let's talk a little bit about some of the
businesses that are around there.
So we have breweries youmentioned those Then you have
some cool restaurants.
What are just some of thehighlight places?
And I know that kind of putsyou on the spot as a town
manager because you don't wantto leave somebody out.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
No, no, we've got great.
We have, yeah, we've gotamazing restaurants Grateful
Table, we have a coffee shopthat I'd put against any third
wave one in Western NorthCarolina, paper Town, and, yeah,
we mentioned the brewery BearWaters, obviously, but we've got
awesome retail.
Again, it's one of those thingswhere we've got this amazing
downtown building stock, becausethe mill existed and so we have
(36:18):
all these historic buildingsthat have been renovated
shameless plug.
There's still some available.
So if anyone is wanting to comeopen a bike shop or open up an
interesting shop in Canton, see,let me know.
Yeah, because it probably won'tbe there long, because it
probably won't be there verylong.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
When you think of the mill area, like the physical
area where the mill, and thenyou think about expanding, let's
start kind of in that area andthen let's kind of go out and
sort of spread our wings alittle bit.
I'd love to talk about PisgahView State Park, if that's even
something that we want to talkabout today too.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Yep, for those who are unfamiliar, the mill site
itself is 185 acre parcel.
It is adjacent to our downtown,I mean it is directly in the
middle of Canton.
You know there are a lot ofimpacts to what happens on that
site.
So we're continuing tonegotiate with Pact of Evergreen
, which is the operator whoannounced the closure back in
2023.
(37:10):
But that mill site ends upbeing a silver bullet in a lot
of ways.
So obviously there are majorsort of flood implications of
having that level of sort ofstructures and things in the
regulatory floodway and in the100-year floodway.
So the implications for futureflooding events, our ability to
(37:30):
sort of lower that base floodelevation level in a hurricane
or in a tropical storm byremoving some of the barriers to
flow and things like that onthe mill site.
So when we look at the mill sitewe think about sort of the
flood recovery mitigationperspective.
The existing wastewatertreatment plant.
Think about sort of the floodrecovery mitigation perspective.
The existing wastewatertreatment plant that treats all
(37:52):
of the town's waste is on themill site itself.
We will be relocating andbuilding a new facility but
we'll have to operate that onefor six to seven years and then
I think we view, sort of a broadarray of diverse opportunities
on the mill site.
So, whether that is cleanmanufacturing, whether that's
commercial or mixed use, I thinkthere's a possibility or a
(38:12):
potential for an extension ofsort of our downtown and to be
able to have, you know,additional sort of breweries and
hotels, and I think there'sopportunities to redevelop that
site into many things.
Again, going back to that100-year-old history, there's
plenty of structures that aresort of their purposes, won't be
utilized and would be justifiedin sort of a selective
(38:35):
demolition is the term thatwe're using.
But, mike, there areunbelievable structures and
buildings that can be reused invarious creative ways to do some
pretty incredible things thatagain really lend themselves to
that authenticity and sort ofthat history.
And I think that's one of thethings that you know.
We want to make sure that thereare opportunities to make
(38:56):
things on this site.
That's a huge point of communitypride and the manufacturing
part the manufacturing part isthe history, and so if we're
able to do that withoutnegatively impacting our natural
amenities which we know we areyou know that's going to be a
huge part and that's somethingthat our community cares greatly
about.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
I don't know.
But I know that you engage thecommunity, asking them their
input, getting the input.
That's all part of the planning.
But are you getting anythingjust sort of ancillary from the
people who live there about whatthey would love to see this
(39:34):
place revitalized as?
Speaker 2 (39:36):
We're just over a year from the announcement and
we're about 10 months basically10 months post the plant
physically shutting down, and soI think there's still a lot of
questions in there for ourcommunity.
I think that you know it waspretty clear early on that sort
of the air quality and waterquality improvements were very
much appreciated and I don'tknow that we could probably go
(39:59):
back to that.
You know sort of how thingswere done previously, but I
think as we know more about themill site, we'll be able to open
up that community engagementprocess a lot more.
So we've done no masterplanning, no sort of site-wide
comprehensive assessments oranything like that yet, just
because we're so fresh in theprocess.
But we're excited to sort of beable to navigate that and work
(40:22):
through, and obviously there'llbe a huge amount of community
input required in order to beable to move forward with kind
of any new, new development orreuse or anything like that.
But again, maybe ask me in twoyears and I can tell you
actually I look forward toasking you that I mean you know
cause.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
I mean, just like the old fort story, I feel like
that's still being written andit's such a great one, and I
think that not to weigh one overthe other, but there's so many
more things I think that youhave the ability to do.
Just just from a, you know justkind of where that town is and
how large the town is.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
That's true, and I think what we learn too and what
we do and same with Old Fortand it's I mean we were we're
looking all over for sort of theprecedents and case studies.
But you know, to have amanufacturer close in, you know,
appalachia or small town,america is not a new thing.
But what you do, what we dowith that, in 2024 may look a
little bit different.
(41:15):
And so for us to be able tohopefully model and set the
precedent about what's possiblefor communities like ours, who
are going through thistransition, I think is important
too, and that's something thatyou know.
We want to make sure that we'redocumenting and and providing
to to other places, because it'sit's it's not easy.
And it it is, you know,continues to be a very complex
(41:36):
and sometimes overwhelmingprocess, and so I think trying
to glean and learn as much as wecan and share that with other
people is going to be is oursort of diligence.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
That's great, all right.
So the day in the life of Nickover the next couple of months
quarters, what does that looklike for you?
Where would the emphasis andthe focus be, and how will you
sort of channel your efforts now, nick?
Speaker 2 (41:58):
So I think we're about two years into flood
recovery, so we've got probablyI've mentioned it before, but
we've got 20 or $30 millionworth of projects that are going
to be going out to bid andbasically being constructed.
We lost our town hall, policedepartment, fire department,
colonial theater, historicarmory, event center, dog park,
(42:21):
you name it basically, and soall those are going to be coming
online in the next year and soI'll be managing a lot of
construction projects.
We're working right now with anumber of different groups, but
one of them is Coastal DynamicsDesign Labs.
They're out at NC State.
They've done incredible work inEastern North Carolina helping
communities become moreresilient to sort of climate
(42:42):
change and flooding impacts.
So that's the resiliency sideof my job.
Title is helping Canton sort ofnavigate and make sure that
when you know the next floodcomes because, as I mentioned
before, you know we talked aboutFred like it was a hundred year
, but the data is telling usit's the 25 to 50 year now.
So we know this is going tohappen again and there's ways
that we can be resilient,there's ways to mitigate a lot
(43:04):
of that.
You know flooding impacts andso it will be.
You know equal parts, sort ofhelping us rebuild from what
happened before.
But every one of those projectshas mitigation and resiliency
built in.
So if there's a structure thathas to remain in the floodplain,
you know it now has deployableflood walls and now has all its
utilities elevated.
So that's, you know that's ajob in itself, is sort of
(43:26):
navigating and helping sort ofyou know the Canton as a
municipality be able to be moreresilient.
And in our town in generalwe're working with various small
businesses around town to goafter opportunities to either
elevate, to flood proof, to makesure that you know both public
and private partners are sort ofprotected.
(43:47):
And you know so that we'reconsidering that mitigation and
resiliency side.
And then the mill recovery, sonegotiating kind of all the site
details and implications andthen working basically to you
know demo and scrap andremediate.
You know it's a 115-year-oldindustrial site so there's lots
of work to be done to get itclean.
A clean bill of health is kindof what we say.
(44:09):
That's the end goal is to havesomething that then can be
turned over to the privatesector and you know we can see
these.
You know craft breweries andoutdoor gear manufacturers and
advanced clean.
You know manufacturing and allthose kinds of things.
So working through sitenegotiations, working through
sort of critical infrastructureand then the economic
(44:30):
development side.
So finishing, finishing outChestnut Mountain.
We've got a couple moreprojects to implement, grant
funded projects, but we shouldbe pretty much fully done by
August.
So the kids bicycle playgroundwill be the last thing that we
do.
I'm really excited about that.
It'll be in the front country,it'll be kind of weatherproof,
so we'll be able to at leasthave some of those amenities
(44:50):
open.
You know, no matter what, yeah,and then kind of, what's next?
We talked about a little bitbefore but we'll be doing a
Pigeon River Corridor study.
So, looking at, you know, whatimprovements need to be made to
the pigeon and how do we improveaccess, how do we leverage and
protect that opportunity?
You know what impediments arethere to utilizing the pigeon
(45:10):
Right now.
There's a low head dam in themiddle of the mill site, in the
middle of the river basically.
So even if access was allowedthrough there, right now it's
not physically possible.
So there's, you know, there'sphysical things, there's
planning things that need to bedone.
But I think, yeah, it's sort offiguring out what.
What's the next chestnutmountain, right?
(45:31):
Yeah, I think it's the pigeonriver, I think it's access, I
think it's wayfinding.
I think there's a lot of lowhanging fruit that we don't
necessarily need to reinvent thewheel, but we need to start
sort of capturing.
You know, our proximity to theparkway, to Shining Rock, to the
East and West Fork, to theBlack Balsams Like that just
(45:51):
needs to be our bread and butter.
I mean, it already exists.
So kind of you know, makingpeople understand that better is
going to be part of it, andthen providing sort of the
necessary access is going to behuge.
So yeah, so I think it'll be abusy few years.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
To say the least.
Right, yeah, how do youapproach it from a planner
standpoint?
When you talk about the PigeonRiver, you talk about some of
the areas that aren'tnecessarily accessible now and
then creating some access.
What is that like?
Navigating through, because noteveryone's going to be
completely on board, and I knowthat you know that better than
not everyone's going to becompletely on board, and and I
(46:27):
know that you know that betterthan anybody and you have to be
sensitive to it.
But there's also the element ofan economic driver, not to just
say money, money, money, butthere's ways that the town can
be, continue to be resilient forthe next 25, 50, 100 years, you
know, based on what income isthere, because we've seen
evidences of places that don'tdo that and then they become
(46:50):
just remnants and ghost towns,and we certainly don't want that
.
And I mean, there's entiregenerations of families that are
from that area.
So, but I'm always curious youknow just what it's like for
somebody who may not have thesame heart.
You know that you do that I doand how you handle and balance
that, because that's animportant part of the equation
too, I would imagine.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
You know, as we are able to.
You know, getting that sort ofcritical community input and
making sure that the people thatyou want to hear from and that
we need to hear from are have avoice in that process, you know,
is kind of the only way thatwe're going to be successful at
these things.
But you're absolutely right,it's a mix.
Right Like you're, you want tomake sure that sort of what
(47:32):
we're proposing and what we moveforward with in a, you know, in
a Canton 2.0, is reflective ofour community and that probably
looks different than it does inBrevard or Black Mountain or,
you know, some of these otherAsheville, even, some of these
traditional tourist towns, andwe want to make sure that we're
honoring that and protectingthat.
So I think all that you knowsort of bakes out in that sort
(47:56):
of master planning communityinput.
So the only thing I'd add to it,I think, is that so the one,
you know we talked earlier justabout how all the amazing
partnerships that we've had andsort of seeing that level of
support at the state and federallevel throughout sort of flood
recovery and mill recovery, youknow Commerce has given us
almost a million dollars tomaster plan sort of every aspect
of Canton.
So from the site master plan,master recreation plan, you know
(48:18):
, basically infrastructure,capital improvement plans, like
we need to look at every aspectof Canton in a post-mill world
because it all has to berecalibrated.
I mean everything from ourhighway network, transportation
networks, you know are oversized, like we were accommodating so
much freight coming through forthe mill itself that we need to
(48:39):
look at our you know sort ofroad networks.
We need to look at you knowkind of all the different areas
at all.
You know kind of all the allthe different areas.
Um, and we want to make surethat we're sort of you know,
incorporating all that into sortof a central vision for what.
What's next for the town?
Speaker 1 (48:55):
Wow, so you've got an entire career built just in one
little town.
That's right, I mean it justthey could go on and on.
Yeah, Nick, what have I notasked you?
What is important, that youwould love for listeners to
understand about what it is thatyou're doing?
The impact of Chestnut Mountain, Canton.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
Yeah, I would say.
I mean, one of the things thatwe didn't dive into too much but
it's something that we're, Ithink, I feel really strongly
about is the future of sort ofoutdoor rec.
So much of that is going to bein municipalities taking the
mantle up, because one of thethings that we saw, you know,
when we did Chestnut Mountainwas, you know, through our
(49:33):
relationships with theconservancy and through granting
agencies, you know, we didn'tpay a dime for that property and
we were actually able to usethe donation value for the
property itself for both theParks and Recreation Trust Fund
grant as well as therecreational trails program.
Those are pretty much the twoprimary funding mechanisms that
funded all the trails there, allthe amenities, you know parking
(49:57):
lots, pavilions, all the above,and so that was, you know, at
very little cost to the town.
The beauty of that is that wecan do whatever we want on that
mountain and you know we're usedto sort of the.
Our traditional trail networksare in the national forest and
they are very restricted in whatcan be done and sort of the
(50:17):
opportunity for public-privatepartnerships, I think is
something that doing it at themunicipal level is really
beneficial for.
You know, byrne Park was funded.
A huge portion of Berm Park wasfunded through private
companies like Backcountrycom,like Park Tool.
That's not something that canbe done in the National Forest
(50:47):
West.
You see these bike companies,manufacturing companies, sponsor
trails, sponsor trailmaintenance, you know, pay for
new trails pay for new accessand that's not something that
you know is allowed within thenational forest.
So if our local advocacy group,piscisorba, wants to set up a
trail, like a volunteer day atBank Creek, they can't set a
tent up and try to solicit, youknow, new members while they're
there.
I did not know that they canpretty much do anything they
(51:09):
want at Chestnut, obviouslywithin our management plan and
within reason as far as ourconservation easements go, but
there's so much more flexibility, and for a town to be able to
budget for a you know, awaterline break could cost me
the same thing that randomlyhappens in one day.
(51:30):
You know, the ROI on that's sohigh too.
It's just so.
I think that's something that Iwould like to see a lot more of
is seeing our cities and townsstart to take that mantle up,
because I think there'ssignificant opportunities there.
Yeah, well said.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
Well said so that's something.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
And then I've been just so blown away with Southern
Appalachian HighlandsConservancy and so I would
encourage anybody who, you know,cares about our mountains and
our rivers to support them andlook into them.
But they were incrediblepartners to work with.
That's so great to hear.
Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
Good, good, yeah.
Well, I know you have work todo Now you have transitioning
work to do.
That's right, leaving the otherone and going to the new one,
but I can't thank you enough forcoming in sharing a little bit
of your story, but also justwhat you bring to the table, too
, in terms of, yeah, happy to behere and appreciate the
(52:26):
opportunity to wrap Canton andeverything going on Absolutely,
and I love the fact that I'musually the one bringing out at
some point in the conversationabout we'd love to have you back
and see how this thing is going.
Yeah, I think we've already kindof maybe set the date for a
couple of years down the road tosee where we are Two years, two
years, 26.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
We're going to do it.
No joke, sounds good, all right.
Speaker 1 (52:44):
Appreciate you, brother, thanks, man.
From its industrial roots tothe vibrant tapestry of Chestnut
Mountain Nature Park and beyond, canton stands as a testament
to the power of communitycollaboration and
forward-thinking leadership.
I hope you enjoyed this journeyto discover Canton's
transformation.
It's only just beginning and Iam stoked to see how it's going
to unfold.
I'd like to give a specialshout out to Made by Mountains,
(53:08):
who made this episode possible.
This episode is part of our Madeby Mountains series, where
we're diving deeper into thelives of people who call these
mountains home and how thesemountains have made them.
So I hope you enjoyed thisepisode and, if you did, please
consider leaving us a review.
It truly does help us reachmore people, and if you know
someone who also might enjoy thepodcast, be sure to share this
(53:28):
episode with them too.
Be sure to subscribe toExploration Local so you'll be
one of the first to know whennew episodes drop.
Join me on Instagram andFacebook and drop me a note at
mike at explorationlocalcom ifyou ever havea suggestion for a
future episode or if you justwant to say hello.
Until next time.
Remember that the future is notjust written.
(53:49):
It's shaped by the collectiveefforts of those who dare to
dream and strive for change.
And, of course, I alwaysencourage you to wander far, but
explore local.
Thank you.
From its industrial past to a future teeming with
ecotourism and innovation.
Canton's story is one ofresilience and transformation.
In this episode, I sit downwith Nick Scheuer, canton's Town
Manager, and we delve into thecaptivating story of Chestnut
Mountain Park, which is asprawling 450-acre sanctuary
helping to reshape Canton'seconomic and recreational
(00:21):
landscape.
We navigate the currents ofChestnut Mountain's impact on
local businesses and the town'sidentity, illuminating how
embracing outdoor recreation ispropelling Canton into a new era
of prosperity and purpose.
Our exploration doesn't stopthere.
We dissect the ambitiousredevelopment plans for the
iconic mill site and emphasizethe importance of community
(00:42):
engagement and culturalpreservation.
Canton is not just apicturesque destination but a
beacon of communitycollaboration and innovative
growth.
This episode is a testimony tothe power of resilience and
adaptation in rewriting a town'snarrative.
Join us as we witness Canton'sjourney from past to present and
we peek into the promisingchapters of its future.
(01:04):
I'll see you on the other side.
You're listening to ExplorationLocal, a podcast designed to
explore and celebrate the peopleand places that make the Blue
Ridge and Southern AppalachianMountains special and unique.
My name is Mike Andrus, thehost of Exploration Local.
(01:26):
Join us on our journey toexplore these mountains and
discover how they fuel thespirit of adventure.
We encourage you to wander far,but explore local.
Let's go Well, nick, I cannotthank you enough for driving
over today.
Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Thanks for having me Happy to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
You are the town manager, or at least as of last
week you're the town manager.
We're going to say a little bitmore about that towards the end
.
But what does a town manager do?
What's the function of a townmanager?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, great question.
So my background is in planningand before I came to the town
of Canton that was my workexperience, so I think I asked
those same questions prior tocoming to this job.
But it basically you'rebasically running the day to day
operations of the town.
So everything from police andfire operations to water
(02:15):
production, wastewater treatment, tax collection, finance, sort
of all the inner workings of theway a town works are under the
purview of a town manager, andin North Carolina traditionally
the setup is a kind of a managercouncil form of government.
So I'm appointed and serve atthe pleasure of my board, but
then pretty much everyone undermy position is then a hired
(02:38):
position.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Okay, and how long have you been in this role, Nick
?
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I've been with the town of Canton since 2018.
I've been town manager for thelast three years.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
One of the things I love to sort of set the stage
with, because some of ourlisteners many of our listeners
are right here, but there's alsomany listeners that are in
areas all around the country,the nation, the world, really,
so they may not know your story.
Just a quick rundown.
I mean we're talking about in04 and 05, the town of Canton
had two major storms back toback.
You had the.
(03:06):
We've had the recession, covid,fred basically decimated in
2021.
Then we have the mill closingin 2023.
I mean, it's one thing for onething to happen to a community,
but we're talking about over thelast 20 years, two decades, a
lot has happened and yet thepeople seem resilient, and so I
(03:26):
love to use that sort of as abackdrop and just talk about the
resiliency of the people, thethings that they've had to face,
the things that you've had todo in terms of your providing
leadership as you've movedthrough some of these, at least
since 2018.
Let's set it up there and thenwe'll kind of move into why this
is so important that we'retalking about today.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Yeah, absolutely so, as I like to give this quote.
My mayor is known for beingable to give these anecdotal
quotes.
But after the mill closureannouncement happened, there
were some small earthquakes thathappened in Haywood County and
nothing very impactful, butenough to make the news make the
(04:06):
news.
And we were in a meetingtalking about sort of how we
transitioned from the millclosure and our mayor is on
record as saying, after we foundout about the earthquakes, that
Canton is a locust plague awayfrom a revelation bingo card.
And as funny as that is, andyou know, it's the truth, and
Canton has seen a lot in thelast 25 years and I think what
makes this special story is justhow resilient those people are
(04:28):
and the fact that, despite allthe things that you just listed
of, you know culture and pridebased around you know this town
that's, you know, 15, 20 mileswest of Asheville.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Wow.
So, you know something that yousaid really I was thinking
about this even last night thismorning, just kind of preparing
for for this interview that italmost seems like your best days
are ahead, like you'rerewriting the story of Canton.
But it really seems like, Imean, excuse me, your best days
are definitely ahead, but itdefinitely seems like you're
like we're in the middle of youwriting the town of Canton, the
people of Canton, rewriting thestory of the town, which is
(05:13):
amazing to be a part of, I wouldimagine.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Yeah, it's very humbling, I think, when I
actually step back and kind oftake perspective on that and
you'll hear me use some flowerylanguage in the podcast, but I
think you know we would considerit a manifest destiny moment.
The town was formed exclusivelyaround manufacturing and you
had a mill that was created 115years ago.
It's the reason that we haveour downtown sort of historic
(05:37):
district.
It's the reason why we have allthe housing stock and all the
density.
I mean, the mill is the originstory for Canton and so now that
that's gone we're pivoting andwe've got to look elsewhere and
figure out sort of what thatCanton 2.0 is, and it's scary
and exciting and interesting andunbelievably complex.
(05:58):
But you're right, that'sexactly where we are right now.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Which is really a good segue into really what
we're going to talk about forthe lion's share of it today is
how do you take the naturalamenities, the natural assets
around you that become the newplace?
So there's a new sense ofplace-based economics and it
really started with a reallyphenomenal story that could have
gone a couple of differentdirections with the property.
So we're talking about ChestnutMountain.
(06:22):
There's a lot to unpack here.
There is, but I think one thingthat'd be really cool is like
let's talk about what it couldhave been, what the direction it
was going, because that wouldhave been far different than
where we are today.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
That's right, yeah, so this parcel is 450 acres.
It's about a mile and a quarterfrom our downtown.
Historically it was used forcattle grazing and agriculture.
It was also a place I think youknow I have got a lot of public
work staff and people that workfor the town that actually
there was a time when you couldpay $100 a year or some monetary
(06:57):
number and basically be able toride dirt bikes or hunt, or you
know it's been used by thecommunity in informal ways for a
long time.
In the early 2000s there weresome investors that came in and
it was slated to actually be aNASCAR training facility.
That's crazy.
So the Melodome was shuttingdown in Asheville, the dirt
track there in the River ArtsDistrict so they were looking
(07:17):
for a new location to be able torun NASCARs and so there were
preliminary designs andengineering done.
There were soil, roads cut,Property was clear, cut in a lot
of places and timbered.
There was a large multimilliondollar bridge that was built at
the base of the mountain andthen for various reasons that
(07:38):
project was shuttered and it waskind of left basically high and
dry and then a few years laterthere was the prospect of an
indoor ski slope being builtthere.
So there's been lots ofdifferent concepts and ideas
about what the property could be, but none of those really came
to fruition and so it sat forabout 20 years.
And it was through a wildlifecorridor study done by the
(08:00):
Wildlands Network that waslooking at animals migrating
from Sandy Mush to PisgahNational Forest that this was
actually targeted by SouthernAppalachian Highlands
Conservancy as a potentialproperty to acquire.
So their model typically is tofundraise and acquire property
and then turn that over to landmanagers such as the town of
(08:23):
Canton to basically preserve andhold conservation easements on.
So their model typically ismore conservation-based and this
was one of the first projectsthat they worked on that was
that marriage of sort ofconservation and recreation,
which is the future, and reallyamazing, unbelievable partners
(08:44):
to work with just from start tofinish.
Can't speak highly enough aboutthem.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Oh, that's great, and so this parcel of land was just
gifted, right?
Speaker 2 (08:54):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
To the town of Canton , I mean, and that's not an
inexpensive proposition?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
four million and so they approached us in 2019.
So I'd been with the town forabout a year, I was serving as
planning director, assistanttown manager, and they basically
Honey Meritor came to usthrough Southern Appalachian and
asked hey, would you guys beinterested in acquiring this
property?
And we looked at a map andrealized it was a mile and a
quarter from downtown and hadreally interesting terrain and
good connectivity, good you know, basically sort of good
(09:27):
infrastructure and assetsalready on the ground.
So it was a no brainer for thetown and so we very quickly
agreed to that SAHC sort of setoff to start the fundraising
process.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
You had other people that started to come alongside
you at the very same time.
So we know Seth Alvo, and a lotof mountain bikers will know
the name.
They'll know Seth Bike Hacks,and now it's the Burn Peak, and
so they'll know all of that inhis channel.
But there were other thingsthat were sort of happening
along the way of that too, andso the funding for this is
really interesting because it'sa lot of different sources.
And so I wonder if you can kindof unpack that a little bit too
(10:00):
.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
Of course.
So, you know, as we started tomove through process of working
with SAHC, it was, you know,clear from the outset that we
were going to need to do a lotof sort of high-level master
planning to inform all theactivities that were going to go
on on the mountain, to inform,you know, to be informed by the
conservation easements, to makesure that you know the end uses
(10:21):
for the property were going toimprove water quality and
improve the natural amenitiesthat were already there.
So as we started to workthrough that master planning
process, you know we knew thatwe wanted to create sort of a
multi-use park, something thatwould accommodate all levels of
hikers and bikers and familiesand just something that could
really serve our community.
(10:41):
So as we started to look at themaster planning process, we
were having some conversationswith our local advocacy group,
piscisorba, and they had been inconversation with Seth Alvo,
and so, if you don't know Seth,he's got a huge social media,
youtube presence and at thattime he was looking to basically
crowdfund a free public bikepark in Western North Carolina
(11:10):
and so, without throwing anyother municipalities under the
bus, he had gone to a number ofcities and towns in the region
and had sort of proposed thisidea and, for varying reasons,
they said no.
And so when we were inconversation with Pisces Sorba,
they made that connection withSeth.
We actually met on the propertyand within a day had come to an
agreement.
So we were funding through somegrants and some local
(11:31):
partnerships.
We were funding all the masterplanning and design, and so the
agreement was we'll fund thedesign for Byrne Park and you
crowdfund it.
And that's exactly whathappened, and you crowdfund it.
And that's exactly whathappened.
And so as we're working throughall the community engagement
processes and working throughthe master planning and the
trail master plans and goingthrough the RFQs and identifying
(11:52):
all these firms, he's in thebackground, crowdfunding
basically the entirety of ByrnePark.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
And I think for us what made it even more amazing
was that in the middle of all,that is when Tropical Storm Fred
came, and so as a town manager,it would have been very
difficult for me to make thatjustification to pay or to use
tax dollars to fund somethinglike Byrne Park when we're
looking at $20, $30, $40 millionworth of facility damage just
(12:20):
in Canton alone.
So to have him be able toincubate that first phase of the
project was just.
It's one of the primary reasonsthat Chestnut exists today, and
so he was such a pleasure towork with and such an amazing
process to go through.
I'll never forget.
As a planner, I'm more sensitiveto some of these things, but in
(12:41):
the typical planning process,you know, you do a lot of public
input.
You want your people to giveinput and talk about what they
want, but it's pretty rare, andso the numbers are normally
pretty low.
For your normal public inputsurvey, we'd be lucky to have,
you know, 50, 100 surveyresponses.
We had 4,000 people respond tothe public survey process for
(13:02):
Byrne Park and Chestnut Mountainand I think that's just
reflective of A you know theneed and desire for that in our
region, but then also just the,the sort of the, the spread and
influence that that Seth has umin the mountain bike community.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Oh, that's huge, and I have to ask too as a follow-up
so, of those 4,000 or sorespondents, how many of those
were people that were sort of inCanton?
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Um, I would say in our region it's probably 50, 50,
but you know we had peoplechiming in from Eastern Europe.
I mean it was everywhere.
So you know, exciting, I think,for us to sort of understand.
You know that this haspotentially has some global
implications and helped usunderstand.
You know there are going to bepeople that are going to want to
travel here and we can get intolater sort of the economics of
(13:47):
it.
But that place-based economicdevelopment, especially in the
mountains, with the amenitiesthat we have, it's huge and so
starting to leverage thoseopportunities is critical,
especially consideringeverything that's going on for
us.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah.
So for people that aren'tfamiliar, when we talk about
Chestnut Mountain, we talk aboutit's multi-use.
So we have not just mountainbikers that are out there, but
there's hikers too.
We have not just mountainbikers that are out there, but
there's hikers too.
The park itself I wonder if youcould sort of break down, give
us sort of this mental image ofwhat this bike park is.
The access road's up, thetrail's coming down, and it
really sounds like it'ssomething for everybody.
(14:22):
It's not just your most radperson out there just trying to
send it to the next level.
This is somebody who's justgetting into this as well.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Yeah, absolutely so.
The larger park is the 450-acrepark, is Chestnut Mountain, so
that's the nature park and thatincludes all the hiking-only
trails, all the single-directionmountain biking traditional
kind of downhill trails.
That includes Berm Park, whichis sort of a mini bike park
within Chestnut Mountain.
The way it's set up is thatthere's a primary climbing trail
(14:50):
.
It's wide enough for familiesto take jogging strollers up.
It's wide enough foraccommodate adaptive cycles.
It is very much just amulti-use single direction in
areas where sort of userconflict would be a problem with
a mountain biker going down andhikers going up.
(15:10):
And it's a spine trail.
So it starts at the bottom, atthe parking lot right off 1923.
And if you take that you'lltake it all the way to the top
of the mountain.
So there's about 1100 footelevation difference between top
and bottom.
So good, good elevation, goodtopo for for mountain bike
trails and things like that.
So you've got you basicallyhave a three quarter mile pedal
(15:32):
or push or walk or hike.
That gets you up to berm park,gets you up to that plateau
where that NASCAR training ringwas going to be.
When you're up there you canstart to visualize it because
you can see these areas thatwere clear cut and now have sort
of these low jack pines growing.
But berm park then is basicallylike I said, it's a mini bike
park, so they would call it astacked loop system.
(15:53):
So you've got trails that are aquarter to maybe half mile at
the most and basically varyingdifficulties, from a strider
bike loop with no elevation lossand some skinnies and little
features for kids that are on,you know, basically balance
bikes to start out on All theway up to a double black trail
(16:16):
that has a telephone pole justwedged in the ground and you
know 20 plus foot jumps and biggaps and drops and all kinds of
stuff.
So you know kind of everythingfor everybody.
And I jokingly say I've got aneight and 11 year old and
obviously they were, you know,four and five and seven and
eight when we were starting thisthing, but I kind of just built
(16:36):
it selfishly for them, becausetrying to teach kids how to
mountain bike in Western NorthCarolina on our inherited horse
and logging trails is not easy,and so creating a place where
progression, safe progression,is built in is huge for our
region, and I think that's oneof the areas that makes Chestnut
so special, because that samementality goes towards the
(17:00):
greater trail network as well.
So there's, you know, greens,green mountain bike trails that
are just, you know, flow trailsthat are easy and you know, safe
and have long sight lines.
You know, all the way to doubleblack stuff off the top, wow,
50% of it's still above my paygrade, wow.
So again, just having thatprogression built in, so it's
about 18 miles total of trail.
(17:21):
There are more mountain biketrails than hiking trails, but
as far as distance goes, it'ssplit almost in half, wow.
So there's opportunities for tohike and bike together, but
there's lots of opportunities toseparate those users, and
that's something that we see inDuPont, we see it in Bank Creek.
Like user conflict is a realthing, and so one of the
(17:42):
beauties of designing a parkfrom scratch is you get to try
to sort of accommodate thosetype of issues before they even
exist, and you can see it whenyou're at the park.
Try to sort of accommodatethose type of issues before they
even exist, and you can see itwhen you're at the park.
Like, just interactions thatyou have with hikers and other
bikers are very positive, justbecause I think people feel like
everyone has a place there andfeels comfortable.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Oh, that's so good, wow, well, and with 2,000 people
, 4,000 people all across theworld that were chiming in on
this to support it, and then2,000 of those being just with
Canton alone, I mean, imaginethis mountain bike community,
the hiking community, everybodyhave just really embraced it.
So a moment ago you talkedabout the economic impact, and
I'd love to kind of tap intothat just a tiny bit, or
actually more than a tiny bit.
(18:23):
But before we do, you had thisthinking just wasn't, it just
didn't happen by chance.
I mean, you had I think it wasEquinox was kind of a part of
the planning for this, and thenyou had some really experienced
trail builders that also helpedbridge the design into something
that was reality too.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yes, yeah, I'm so thankful we had incredible
partners, and that's areoccurring theme, I think, just
as part of the Canton storybeyond just Chestnut Mountain in
general, is there's no way thatour small community would be
able to make it through all thiswithout being able to leverage
those amazing partnerships andrelationships, whether that's
our legislators or philanthropicorganizations like Dogwood, or
(19:00):
conservation entities like SHC,our county partners.
I mean, there's just been, it'sbeen a huge collaboration, and
so working with Equinox wasabsolutely incredible, and that
was one of the things that weknew from the very beginning.
Because of the relationshipwith the conservancy and because
of the conservation easements Alot of the property was funded
(19:22):
through land and water funddollars we knew that we were
going to have to be very carefuland deliberate and cognizant of
sort of those implications andimpacts, and so, having a firm
like Equinox who is in thebusiness of doing these sort of
master plans and masterconservation plans or recreation
(19:43):
plans, I think their experiencelevel was comforting for SHC
and subsequently for us, and sothey did an incredible job of
helping us navigate all that andvision what could be possible
on the site, so that theyhandled the master trail or,
excuse me, the master plan andthen elevated trail design was
who did our master trail planand then who has built all the
(20:06):
trails on the mountain up todate?
And elevated trail design againunbelievable to work with.
Peter Mills is the owner andthe guys that work for him and
the Calibor work that they do ispretty unparalleled.
You know, sort of level ofcommunication and even just the
activation of these projects aswe have brought new trails
(20:27):
online, you know broughtadvocacy groups out for days and
we're continuing to work onsort of creating kind of that
local support group, the Friendsof Chestnut Mountain or
whatever that looks like.
I think 2024 will be the yearwhen we try to start to initiate
that.
But we've got Elevated is oncontract even as of now to do
trail maintenance there.
(20:48):
So they're there six to sevendays a month with many
excavators and just keepingeverything sort of in tip top
shape.
So can't, cannot speak highlyenough of them and the caliber
of their work.
And you you mean you don't haveto ride there very long to
realize that the stuff they'redoing is just kind of next level
and so it's exciting to seethat come, come to Western North
(21:10):
Carolina.
They've built amazing stuff allover, really all over the world
but all over the country.
So to see them get to executeat that level at Chestnut was
such a pleasure and, you know,got to been able to be a part of
all that for the last few yearshas been a huge joy for me, I
bet.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
And for your whole family it sounds like, and the
whole family, yeah, I mean, andfor your whole family, it sounds
like the whole family.
Yeah, yeah, that's.
That's an important piece.
So the economic impact piece,before we sort of kind of move
on what has this done, what doyou see it doing?
And just really, what is theoverall impact the town of
Canton, to the community ofCanton and to this whole region
economically?
Speaker 2 (21:46):
Well, I think, I mean , I think we've got to look at
this at the state too.
I mean, I throw out a lot ofstats when we talk about outdoor
recreation, but outdoor recoutpaces financial, valued at
$3.5 billion a year.
You know, I know that there wasa study done on the economic
(22:14):
impact of biking and climbingand maybe paddling in Pisgah and
Anahala and that study needs tobe redone.
But I mean, I think theregional impact was, you know,
$8 to $11 million a year orsomething like that, just for
those activities within a verydefined area.
So I think, from the beginning,you know, we knew that the
messaging and that's just theway it is, I think, with any of
(22:37):
these projects is that you're,you know, your messaging can
change for different audiences,right?
Like some people are going tocare more about quality of life,
some people are going to caremore about the economic impact,
and so we have to make sure thatwe're able to speak to each of
those, because they're all valid, they're all important.
Like I said before, you know,one of the beautiful things of
(22:58):
getting to build a brand newpark from scratch you know,
starting in 2020, 2021, is justthat we get to look at what
other places have done and learnfrom those.
So one of the things that wesaid was we want to measure sort
of economic impact from thevery beginning.
We don't want chestnut tobecome this really valuable
(23:18):
popular thing and then, 10 yearsfrom now, we're like we should
do an economic impact study.
So we've had trail counters onthe ground, kind of within the
first two or three months ofhaving the park open, and that's
been really cool to be able tosee as we add, you know, each
trail, each piece, each amenityin the park.
You know we can actually seethis.
You know, basically we canmeasure sort of the impact of
(23:42):
each of those.
And then at the same time,we've got sort of a community
input study that you can do onlyif you're at the park.
So we've got QR codes on yardsigns kind of throughout the
park basically, and so we've gottrail counters and then we've
got a user input study.
And what we're doing now iswe're taking that data and we're
(24:02):
mirroring it and we'requantifying.
You know what's the economicimpact of Chestnut Mountain, and
so we don't have any kind offirm numbers on there, including
lodging, but right now we'reseeing, you know, 50 to 60
unique users there every day andpeople are spending a
significant amount of money.
So I think we're comfortablesort of saying right now that,
(24:25):
excluding lodging, people arespending three or four million
million in Canton and in HaywoodCounty after they visit
Chestnut Mountain, and that'sexcluding the lodging portion of
it.
So the impact is significant.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
That is significant, so 50 to 60 unique users a day.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Yeah, and that number continues to grow Again.
It's like when the park opened,it was literally just Byrne
Park, so much more of a noveltything, whereas now, you know,
we've got 18 miles of trails,we've got a couple more things
to build out there as far aspicnic pavilions, and we're
doing a kid's bicycle playgroundat the bottom, but all the
trail mileage and everythingelse is done.
You know, we completed the lasttrail, I believe in November of
(25:09):
2023.
And so we're.
You know those numbers aregoing to only you know, increase
.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
That is really incredible, nick.
So if I have if I'm looking atthe statistics right 50 to 60
unique people, so that's on aMonday, yet 50.
Now if that same person comesback on a Thursday, are they
counted in part of this unique?
Speaker 2 (25:26):
No, they're not.
Yeah, that's what makes us evenmore incredible, I mean
exponentially, that's.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
that is enormous, it's big.
I mean.
That is far beyond what I eventhought of even coming into this
interview to be honest with you.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
And then you start to think about how you extrapolate
that out to the food, thelodging, the bike shops, the all
the other stuff, the brewerytrips, the breweries, everything
you know, and I think that'sone of the things that is
helping.
You know, as we you know we hadthat obviously the mill closure
and we can we viewed sort of alot of our retail downtown
locations.
(25:59):
Is potentially some of thecanaries in the mine right, like
they're going to be the onesyou know you've got a thousand
people less working a quartermile from our you know mom and
pop burger shop.
What does that look like?
What is it?
What are the implications ofthat?
And so I think having thingslike Chestnut, having people
coming into town and visitingand patronizing those things,
(26:21):
has sort of softened that blow alittle bit.
So exciting to see thatcontinue to grow.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Chestnut Mountain is a phenomenal facility.
Obviously, we can see theeconomic impact that it's
bringing in, but there's so muchmore around us and around you
in there in Canton.
Before we go there, though, theresidents, the people because
you're living amongst them,you're working amongst them,
eating amongst them, recreatingAre they seeing the economic
impact of this?
Like, do they really feel it?
(26:48):
I mean, they probably noticethere's more activity, but do
they get a sense that there iseconomic benefit here?
Speaker 2 (26:54):
I would say yes, but I think you know at this point
in time, for most people it isanecdotal.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
You know we've got our local brewery owners told us
you know they've got a couplelocations in Haywood County and
the Maggie Valley location andthe Canton location.
Maggie Valley alwaysoutperformed Canton, kind of two
to one, and then the weekendthat Chestnut Mountain opened it
sort of went one to one and hasleveled off there since.
So you see a lot of cars withbike racks, you know, and in
(27:22):
parking lots and at restaurantsaround town.
But I think we're excited toreally be able to quantify this
data, to start to say that youknow and then start to inform
our community about what's goingon.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
I bet I mean that's the land planner in you, that's
the planner.
I mean you're not a free spiritkind of.
I mean I'm sure you are whenyou're writing, but I mean you
just come across as a verythoughtful, very methodical.
You're a planner.
That's where your background is, and so the data is going to
speak volumes to you, I'm sure,and it's going to take a little
bit of time to collect that data, but the initial data coming in
says I mean gosh, if you couldjust talk about that one brewery
as just a micro example.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Two to one, one to one now holding off and however
many people go to Catalucci andare probably right by there, I
mean it's not just the skiing,but for four, or leverage that
opportunity and open up, youknow, amenities and shops and
things like that that can.
They can cater to that.
(28:17):
So it's an exciting thing towatch.
Oh, that's great.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
All right.
So let's a little bit of a hardpivot, but it's all connected.
You have a new role, that'sright.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Right Ever since last Thursday and let's set up your
new role.
And then I got a bunch of soexcited to be transitioning into
that, as you know sort offuture financial implications,
climate change implications.
It's a huge opportunity andsomething that I'm really
excited about and something thatI think plays to my strengths
but helps us, as a town, makesure that we are excelling in
all areas.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
And in some ways you're already excelling because
you talk about the environment,you talk about the impact
you've shared with me.
You know a couple of times,just when the plant closed down
just how quickly I don't know ifquickly is the right word, but
just it's interesting how theriver is sort of healing itself
the Pigeon River is sort ofrunning right through you and
how much it's cleaning up.
That's just a small example.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
I love to give.
The Wildlife ResourceCommission did a study.
I think it was either, and Iwon't get all of it exactly
right, but it was.
I believe it was 45 days beforethe mill closed.
They did a study.
Basically, they were looking ataquatic life.
45 days before the mill closedthey did that same study, I
think within 15 days of theclosure, and there was like 15x
(30:14):
the aquatic life, or somethinglike that, already in the river.
So the river is resilient and Ibelieve you know the river is a
huge part of Canton's future.
Having the opportunity to takea step back and look at you know
what are our priorities, whatdo we want to do for the future?
How do we feel about all thesenatural amenities?
You know Canton, I think, forso long was a manufacturing town
(30:36):
and that's all that wasnecessary.
You know the payroll for theplant itself was $100 million a
year.
They bought $250 plus millionworth of wood chips from our
region and so all of a suddenyou remove that sort of from the
equation.
It creates quite a void.
So I'm very thankful that wehave amenities like the Pigeon,
(30:57):
like the Blue Ridge Parkway Imean if you look at Black Balsam
, skinny Dip Falls, graveyardFields, a lot of Shining Rock,
wilderness, east and West Forkof the Pigeon River those are
all technically Canton andthat's something that we're not
leveraging at this point in timeat all and taking advantage of
or protecting, and so there's ahuge opportunity there.
(31:18):
It would be a very differentstory if Canton was, you know,
in the middle of eastern NorthCarolina and had no natural
amenities and no urbanized area,no tourism.
You know, this conversationmight look a lot different if we
were in that boat.
Again, future is bright.
I mean, canton is astaggeringly beautiful place.
Haywood County is incredible.
(31:40):
Yeah, in a lot of ways it isoff the radar at this point in
time.
It's the highest mean elevationcounty east of the Mississippi,
so we have big mountains, we'vegot big watersheds.
I mean it's a special place.
So I think you know we want tomake sure that we're providing
opportunities for people toenjoy that.
(32:01):
You know, locals andpotentially visitors alike.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, I mean a special place with a really
special people.
Yes, that is special place witha really special people.
Yes, that is something that hasalways resonated with me we
were talking earlier about.
We've only lived here for about13 and a half years, but a lot
of our early connection withthat area was through sports,
and so we could just see justthe community that was there and
(32:23):
the people that came togetherand it was beyond just we're
going to go support our localhigh school team or middle
school team or whatever.
I've never been to a place everin Western North Carolina that
I've seen a basketball gympacked out for a women or girls
basketball game at four o'clockin the afternoon.
I mean, it's just a smallexample, I know, but it's just
the heart of the people and justhow much this is home for them.
(32:46):
I mean it's their whole livesjust surrounded by this place.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
It's a really special place, I think.
You know, coming from,obviously coming from the
outside in, it's taken me a longtime to sort of wrap my head
around.
You know all the, all theshared history and sort of the
sense of community that isCanton, and that is something
that we will not lose.
You know, that's our line inthe sand.
You really can't recreate thatauthenticity.
And so making sure that our,that community is protected and
(33:13):
making sure that that culturestays the same is a huge part
and a huge priority for us.
But it's also a hugeresponsibility.
You know we are looking at whatis Canton 2.0 at this point in
time and we want to make surethat we get it right and we sort
of have one opportunity to dothat.
You know, making sure thatwe're not losing what makes
Canton special is something thatwe, our board, you know, talks
(33:37):
about constantly.
We will have to continue towork on and you know, ask me in
two years what that looks likeand maybe I can tell you.
But in a lot of ways thatgentrification bubble is getting
sort of removed from Canton.
You remove the paper mill andyou know the nuisance and the
smell and all those things andwe have a relatively short
amount of time to sort of masterplan and make sure that we're
(34:00):
in the right position and doingthe right things to sort of
navigate all the complexitiesthat come with what's next for?
Speaker 1 (34:10):
the town.
So before we move away from thetown and the people, like the
actual physical infrastructureof the town, it has to be one of
the most beautiful littlecommunities in western North
Carolina.
It reminds me a lot of thingslike going up into West Virginia
towards Snowshoe to go skiing,or Stanton or Virginia or places
like that.
It just has a really truemountain feel, the architecture,
(34:31):
the history, like you said,115-year-old plant, so obviously
you're going to have historythere, historical places, but
you don't see a lot of closeddown places.
I mean there's a lot ofbusinesses in every storefront
it seems, and they seem to bechanging and growing too.
That's right.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
That's huge kudos to our board and some of the
previous boards.
I think in the early 2000soccupancy was at like 10%
downtown, so we've seen thatreally grow and they've worked
hard to sort of grow that backfrom what it was.
But I mean it's always been avibrant community and, you're
right, it is naturally a verybeautiful place.
(35:08):
I think one of the things thatI like to point out is you know,
asheville is in a very largeriver valley and so in order for
if you're in you know the cityof Asheville, in order for you
to get to sort of any mountains,any hiking trails, anything
like that, you know you'rehaving to go a decent distance
where, as in Canton, I mean itis truly a mountain town.
I mean you know there aremultiple sort of you know a
(35:32):
thousand plus foot elevationmountains, you know all around,
and so I think it's, yeah, it'sa special place.
It feels much more of atraditional mountain town.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
So let's talk a little bit about some of the
businesses that are around there.
So we have breweries youmentioned those Then you have
some cool restaurants.
What are just some of thehighlight places?
And I know that kind of putsyou on the spot as a town
manager because you don't wantto leave somebody out.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
No, no, we've got great.
We have, yeah, we've gotamazing restaurants Grateful
Table, we have a coffee shopthat I'd put against any third
wave one in Western NorthCarolina, paper Town, and, yeah,
we mentioned the brewery BearWaters, obviously, but we've got
awesome retail.
Again, it's one of those thingswhere we've got this amazing
downtown building stock, becausethe mill existed and so we have
(36:18):
all these historic buildingsthat have been renovated
shameless plug.
There's still some available.
So if anyone is wanting to comeopen a bike shop or open up an
interesting shop in Canton, see,let me know.
Yeah, because it probably won'tbe there long, because it
probably won't be there verylong.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
When you think of the mill area, like the physical
area where the mill, and thenyou think about expanding, let's
start kind of in that area andthen let's kind of go out and
sort of spread our wings alittle bit.
I'd love to talk about PisgahView State Park, if that's even
something that we want to talkabout today too.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
Yep, for those who are unfamiliar, the mill site
itself is 185 acre parcel.
It is adjacent to our downtown,I mean it is directly in the
middle of Canton.
You know there are a lot ofimpacts to what happens on that
site.
So we're continuing tonegotiate with Pact of Evergreen
, which is the operator whoannounced the closure back in
2023.
(37:10):
But that mill site ends upbeing a silver bullet in a lot
of ways.
So obviously there are majorsort of flood implications of
having that level of sort ofstructures and things in the
regulatory floodway and in the100-year floodway.
So the implications for futureflooding events, our ability to
(37:30):
sort of lower that base floodelevation level in a hurricane
or in a tropical storm byremoving some of the barriers to
flow and things like that onthe mill site.
So when we look at the mill sitewe think about sort of the
flood recovery mitigationperspective.
The existing wastewatertreatment plant.
Think about sort of the floodrecovery mitigation perspective.
The existing wastewatertreatment plant that treats all
(37:52):
of the town's waste is on themill site itself.
We will be relocating andbuilding a new facility but
we'll have to operate that onefor six to seven years and then
I think we view, sort of a broadarray of diverse opportunities
on the mill site.
So, whether that is cleanmanufacturing, whether that's
commercial or mixed use, I thinkthere's a possibility or a
(38:12):
potential for an extension ofsort of our downtown and to be
able to have, you know,additional sort of breweries and
hotels, and I think there'sopportunities to redevelop that
site into many things.
Again, going back to that100-year-old history, there's
plenty of structures that aresort of their purposes, won't be
utilized and would be justifiedin sort of a selective
(38:35):
demolition is the term thatwe're using.
But, mike, there areunbelievable structures and
buildings that can be reused invarious creative ways to do some
pretty incredible things thatagain really lend themselves to
that authenticity and sort ofthat history.
And I think that's one of thethings that you know.
We want to make sure that thereare opportunities to make
(38:56):
things on this site.
That's a huge point of communitypride and the manufacturing
part the manufacturing part isthe history, and so if we're
able to do that withoutnegatively impacting our natural
amenities which we know we areyou know that's going to be a
huge part and that's somethingthat our community cares greatly
about.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
I don't know.
But I know that you engage thecommunity, asking them their
input, getting the input.
That's all part of the planning.
But are you getting anythingjust sort of ancillary from the
people who live there about whatthey would love to see this
(39:34):
place revitalized as?
Speaker 2 (39:36):
We're just over a year from the announcement and
we're about 10 months basically10 months post the plant
physically shutting down, and soI think there's still a lot of
questions in there for ourcommunity.
I think that you know it waspretty clear early on that sort
of the air quality and waterquality improvements were very
much appreciated and I don'tknow that we could probably go
(39:59):
back to that.
You know sort of how thingswere done previously, but I
think as we know more about themill site, we'll be able to open
up that community engagementprocess a lot more.
So we've done no masterplanning, no sort of site-wide
comprehensive assessments oranything like that yet, just
because we're so fresh in theprocess.
But we're excited to sort of beable to navigate that and work
(40:22):
through, and obviously there'llbe a huge amount of community
input required in order to beable to move forward with kind
of any new, new development orreuse or anything like that.
But again, maybe ask me in twoyears and I can tell you
actually I look forward toasking you that I mean you know
cause.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
I mean, just like the old fort story, I feel like
that's still being written andit's such a great one, and I
think that not to weigh one overthe other, but there's so many
more things I think that youhave the ability to do.
Just just from a, you know justkind of where that town is and
how large the town is.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
That's true, and I think what we learn too and what
we do and same with Old Fortand it's I mean we were we're
looking all over for sort of theprecedents and case studies.
But you know, to have amanufacturer close in, you know,
appalachia or small town,america is not a new thing.
But what you do, what we dowith that, in 2024 may look a
little bit different.
(41:15):
And so for us to be able tohopefully model and set the
precedent about what's possiblefor communities like ours, who
are going through thistransition, I think is important
too, and that's something thatyou know.
We want to make sure that we'redocumenting and and providing
to to other places, because it'sit's it's not easy.
And it it is, you know,continues to be a very complex
(41:36):
and sometimes overwhelmingprocess, and so I think trying
to glean and learn as much as wecan and share that with other
people is going to be is oursort of diligence.
Speaker 1 (41:46):
That's great, all right.
So the day in the life of Nickover the next couple of months
quarters, what does that looklike for you?
Where would the emphasis andthe focus be, and how will you
sort of channel your efforts now, nick?
Speaker 2 (41:58):
So I think we're about two years into flood
recovery, so we've got probablyI've mentioned it before, but
we've got 20 or $30 millionworth of projects that are going
to be going out to bid andbasically being constructed.
We lost our town hall, policedepartment, fire department,
colonial theater, historicarmory, event center, dog park,
(42:21):
you name it basically, and soall those are going to be coming
online in the next year and soI'll be managing a lot of
construction projects.
We're working right now with anumber of different groups, but
one of them is Coastal DynamicsDesign Labs.
They're out at NC State.
They've done incredible work inEastern North Carolina helping
communities become moreresilient to sort of climate
(42:42):
change and flooding impacts.
So that's the resiliency sideof my job.
Title is helping Canton sort ofnavigate and make sure that
when you know the next floodcomes because, as I mentioned
before, you know we talked aboutFred like it was a hundred year
, but the data is telling usit's the 25 to 50 year now.
So we know this is going tohappen again and there's ways
that we can be resilient,there's ways to mitigate a lot
(43:04):
of that.
You know flooding impacts andso it will be.
You know equal parts, sort ofhelping us rebuild from what
happened before.
But every one of those projectshas mitigation and resiliency
built in.
So if there's a structure thathas to remain in the floodplain,
you know it now has deployableflood walls and now has all its
utilities elevated.
So that's, you know that's ajob in itself, is sort of
(43:26):
navigating and helping sort ofyou know the Canton as a
municipality be able to be moreresilient.
And in our town in generalwe're working with various small
businesses around town to goafter opportunities to either
elevate, to flood proof, to makesure that you know both public
and private partners are sort ofprotected.
(43:47):
And you know so that we'reconsidering that mitigation and
resiliency side.
And then the mill recovery, sonegotiating kind of all the site
details and implications andthen working basically to you
know demo and scrap andremediate.
You know it's a 115-year-oldindustrial site so there's lots
of work to be done to get itclean.
A clean bill of health is kindof what we say.
(44:09):
That's the end goal is to havesomething that then can be
turned over to the privatesector and you know we can see
these.
You know craft breweries andoutdoor gear manufacturers and
advanced clean.
You know manufacturing and allthose kinds of things.
So working through sitenegotiations, working through
sort of critical infrastructureand then the economic
(44:30):
development side.
So finishing, finishing outChestnut Mountain.
We've got a couple moreprojects to implement, grant
funded projects, but we shouldbe pretty much fully done by
August.
So the kids bicycle playgroundwill be the last thing that we
do.
I'm really excited about that.
It'll be in the front country,it'll be kind of weatherproof,
so we'll be able to at leasthave some of those amenities
(44:50):
open.
You know, no matter what, yeah,and then kind of, what's next?
We talked about a little bitbefore but we'll be doing a
Pigeon River Corridor study.
So, looking at, you know, whatimprovements need to be made to
the pigeon and how do we improveaccess, how do we leverage and
protect that opportunity?
You know what impediments arethere to utilizing the pigeon
(45:10):
Right now.
There's a low head dam in themiddle of the mill site, in the
middle of the river basically.
So even if access was allowedthrough there, right now it's
not physically possible.
So there's, you know, there'sphysical things, there's
planning things that need to bedone.
But I think, yeah, it's sort offiguring out what.
What's the next chestnutmountain, right?
(45:31):
Yeah, I think it's the pigeonriver, I think it's access, I
think it's wayfinding.
I think there's a lot of lowhanging fruit that we don't
necessarily need to reinvent thewheel, but we need to start
sort of capturing.
You know, our proximity to theparkway, to Shining Rock, to the
East and West Fork, to theBlack Balsams Like that just
(45:51):
needs to be our bread and butter.
I mean, it already exists.
So kind of you know, makingpeople understand that better is
going to be part of it, andthen providing sort of the
necessary access is going to behuge.
So yeah, so I think it'll be abusy few years.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
To say the least.
Right, yeah, how do youapproach it from a planner
standpoint?
When you talk about the PigeonRiver, you talk about some of
the areas that aren'tnecessarily accessible now and
then creating some access.
What is that like?
Navigating through, because noteveryone's going to be
completely on board, and I knowthat you know that better than
not everyone's going to becompletely on board, and and I
(46:27):
know that you know that betterthan anybody and you have to be
sensitive to it.
But there's also the element ofan economic driver, not to just
say money, money, money, butthere's ways that the town can
be, continue to be resilient forthe next 25, 50, 100 years, you
know, based on what income isthere, because we've seen
evidences of places that don'tdo that and then they become
(46:50):
just remnants and ghost towns,and we certainly don't want that
.
And I mean, there's entiregenerations of families that are
from that area.
So, but I'm always curious youknow just what it's like for
somebody who may not have thesame heart.
You know that you do that I doand how you handle and balance
that, because that's animportant part of the equation
too, I would imagine.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
You know, as we are able to.
You know, getting that sort ofcritical community input and
making sure that the people thatyou want to hear from and that
we need to hear from are have avoice in that process, you know,
is kind of the only way thatwe're going to be successful at
these things.
But you're absolutely right,it's a mix.
Right Like you're, you want tomake sure that sort of what
(47:32):
we're proposing and what we moveforward with in a, you know, in
a Canton 2.0, is reflective ofour community and that probably
looks different than it does inBrevard or Black Mountain or,
you know, some of these otherAsheville, even, some of these
traditional tourist towns, andwe want to make sure that we're
honoring that and protectingthat.
So I think all that you knowsort of bakes out in that sort
(47:56):
of master planning communityinput.
So the only thing I'd add to it,I think, is that so the one,
you know we talked earlier justabout how all the amazing
partnerships that we've had andsort of seeing that level of
support at the state and federallevel throughout sort of flood
recovery and mill recovery, youknow Commerce has given us
almost a million dollars tomaster plan sort of every aspect
of Canton.
So from the site master plan,master recreation plan, you know
(48:18):
, basically infrastructure,capital improvement plans, like
we need to look at every aspectof Canton in a post-mill world
because it all has to berecalibrated.
I mean everything from ourhighway network, transportation
networks, you know are oversized, like we were accommodating so
much freight coming through forthe mill itself that we need to
(48:39):
look at our you know sort ofroad networks.
We need to look at you knowkind of all the different areas
at all.
You know kind of all the allthe different areas.
Um, and we want to make surethat we're sort of you know,
incorporating all that into sortof a central vision for what.
What's next for the town?
Speaker 1 (48:55):
Wow, so you've got an entire career built just in one
little town.
That's right, I mean it justthey could go on and on.
Yeah, Nick, what have I notasked you?
What is important, that youwould love for listeners to
understand about what it is thatyou're doing?
The impact of Chestnut Mountain, Canton.
Speaker 2 (49:12):
Yeah, I would say.
I mean, one of the things thatwe didn't dive into too much but
it's something that we're, Ithink, I feel really strongly
about is the future of sort ofoutdoor rec.
So much of that is going to bein municipalities taking the
mantle up, because one of thethings that we saw, you know,
when we did Chestnut Mountainwas, you know, through our
(49:33):
relationships with theconservancy and through granting
agencies, you know, we didn'tpay a dime for that property and
we were actually able to usethe donation value for the
property itself for both theParks and Recreation Trust Fund
grant as well as therecreational trails program.
Those are pretty much the twoprimary funding mechanisms that
funded all the trails there, allthe amenities, you know parking
(49:57):
lots, pavilions, all the above,and so that was, you know, at
very little cost to the town.
The beauty of that is that wecan do whatever we want on that
mountain and you know we're usedto sort of the.
Our traditional trail networksare in the national forest and
they are very restricted in whatcan be done and sort of the
(50:17):
opportunity for public-privatepartnerships, I think is
something that doing it at themunicipal level is really
beneficial for.
You know, byrne Park was funded.
A huge portion of Berm Park wasfunded through private
companies like Backcountrycom,like Park Tool.
That's not something that canbe done in the National Forest
(50:47):
West.
You see these bike companies,manufacturing companies, sponsor
trails, sponsor trailmaintenance, you know, pay for
new trails pay for new accessand that's not something that
you know is allowed within thenational forest.
So if our local advocacy group,piscisorba, wants to set up a
trail, like a volunteer day atBank Creek, they can't set a
tent up and try to solicit, youknow, new members while they're
there.
I did not know that they canpretty much do anything they
(51:09):
want at Chestnut, obviouslywithin our management plan and
within reason as far as ourconservation easements go, but
there's so much more flexibility, and for a town to be able to
budget for a you know, awaterline break could cost me
the same thing that randomlyhappens in one day.
(51:30):
You know, the ROI on that's sohigh too.
It's just so.
I think that's something that Iwould like to see a lot more of
is seeing our cities and townsstart to take that mantle up,
because I think there'ssignificant opportunities there.
Yeah, well said.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
Well said so that's something.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
And then I've been just so blown away with Southern
Appalachian HighlandsConservancy and so I would
encourage anybody who, you know,cares about our mountains and
our rivers to support them andlook into them.
But they were incrediblepartners to work with.
That's so great to hear.
Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 1 (52:06):
Good, good, yeah.
Well, I know you have work todo Now you have transitioning
work to do.
That's right, leaving the otherone and going to the new one,
but I can't thank you enough forcoming in sharing a little bit
of your story, but also justwhat you bring to the table, too
, in terms of, yeah, happy to behere and appreciate the
(52:26):
opportunity to wrap Canton andeverything going on Absolutely,
and I love the fact that I'musually the one bringing out at
some point in the conversationabout we'd love to have you back
and see how this thing is going.
Yeah, I think we've already kindof maybe set the date for a
couple of years down the road tosee where we are Two years, two
years, 26.
Speaker 2 (52:42):
We're going to do it.
No joke, sounds good, all right.
Speaker 1 (52:44):
Appreciate you, brother, thanks, man.
From its industrial roots tothe vibrant tapestry of Chestnut
Mountain Nature Park and beyond, canton stands as a testament
to the power of communitycollaboration and
forward-thinking leadership.
I hope you enjoyed this journeyto discover Canton's
transformation.
It's only just beginning and Iam stoked to see how it's going
to unfold.
I'd like to give a specialshout out to Made by Mountains,
(53:08):
who made this episode possible.
This episode is part of our Madeby Mountains series, where
we're diving deeper into thelives of people who call these
mountains home and how thesemountains have made them.
So I hope you enjoyed thisepisode and, if you did, please
consider leaving us a review.
It truly does help us reachmore people, and if you know
someone who also might enjoy thepodcast, be sure to share this
(53:28):
episode with them too.
Be sure to subscribe toExploration Local so you'll be
one of the first to know whennew episodes drop.
Join me on Instagram andFacebook and drop me a note at
mike at explorationlocalcom ifyou ever havea suggestion for a
future episode or if you justwant to say hello.
Until next time.
Remember that the future is notjust written.
(53:49):
It's shaped by the collectiveefforts of those who dare to
dream and strive for change.
And, of course, I alwaysencourage you to wander far, but
explore local.
Thank you.
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