AVL's Laws Of Attraction

Speaker 1 [0:00] Alrighty. So, agenda. Well, we're gonna cover tonight. We're gonna start with about five minutes of what we're calling a sit rep. We're just gonna kind of give you the numbers and the lay of the land as they are today. So we can inform our discussion. If you've been here a couple times, you'll notice that we're doing things a little bit differently. We're gonna give you information, and we're gonna basically turn it over to the crowd to get the discussion going until we eventually turn it over to the panel. Tonight's topic is Asheville's laws of attraction. We continue to attract people to the area. How are we doing that? Businesses, people, tourism, people moving here.

What is it about Astro that attracts everyone? We'll move it to the audience, Q and A. We'll get the clicker working here in a second. There you go. If you haven't met us before, my name's Zachary. This is Rodrigo Faunador, we are the co host of AVLmeetup. And basically, what we do here is, we like to say that we bring the movers and shakers of Asheville into the same room. And we do that because we believe in the net profit philosophy. And so what that stands for is networking, education, and transactions, we believe, if you focus on those three things, then it'll turn into profits, right? So, how we do that, basically, starting with networking, is we've had just about 2,000 people check in.

We had about 35 check in, and you'll notice there's more than 35 in the audience, so these numbers are not always good. Moving on, we do education, and we might need your help to bring the back of the room in here in a second. And education hours is just basically this, the panel discussions, the classes at the beginning. And since the start, we're at about 5,600 hours, which is super cool, and then, finally, transactions. So, uh, it's kind of a lot of newer faces here, rays of hands. Has anyone done a deal with anyone from the Asheville community? The AVLmeetup community. All right, pretty good, pretty good. We like seeing those hands go up more and more. And the easiest way to meet people.

We already have some new volunteers up front is volunteering. We're always looking for quality volunteers. The price is right for the event. It's a free event, and that generally happens because the community supports us, helps us make it happen. Thank you. So if we can get a round of applause for the volunteers, please. All right, speaking of which, if you want to become a volunteer, there's a button that says volunteer just about everywhere that there are buttons. And there's four ways you can do it. You can help us set it up, take it down, you can check people in, or you can just kind of facilitate and be a friendly face.

So starting off, we'll let Rodrigo take it from here with the sit rep. So, I had to learn a new word to be able to do these slides here. I did not know what to sit with Brez, which is a situational report for anybody who's wondering what the new acronym is. So, we're gonna talk today, and, uh, these are the numbers as Zach and I see them. And we want to have, like, just open an honest conversation about this. And I think there's an argument to be said that maybe these numbers aren't the most favorable numbers, but we don't want that to be misconstrued as the fact that we have a, you know, negative outlook on what's happening.

It's more of setting the stage, so we can have a good conversation, and actually dive into the conversations that matter. So, Obviously, you all know, we have three amazing panels who are gonna be coming up today, and they'll be able to give their own interpretation, push back or agree, hopefully, on what the numbers are and what it means, as we talk about, you know, how do we attract more people to the actual area? So, what does it look like here today? And today is, you know, postal lean, spring 2025? Obviously, it's a very different spring than we've had before in the past.

If you look at the employment breakdown, you'll see this is a great chart, thank you to the economic development coalition for providing it, but it ranks on the right hand side, you'll see, in order of the most amount of jobs that are provided by Asheville. kind of break it down. I wanted to point out a couple of things. So if you look, health services, education, and government are 31% of the labor force, and then you have leisure hospitality, retail trades another 28%, and we're gonna call those two groups right there, tourism, and combined, it's 59% of the employment in the actual MSA stands for, metropolitan service area.

So, 59% of actual jobs come from four buckets, tourism, debt funding, insurance, and government. So, tourism is hospitality, retail, et cetera, debt funding is gonna be more like education, it's basically debt driven consumerism, if you will. Insurance, obviously, healthcare, et cetera, and then the government is employing that other, you know, third percent of the jobs here in the area. So, Asheville just finished up their 5 by 5, And during that, the last five years, they brought a bunch of jobs to the area. And the average wage for those jobs was just over $60,000, just about $61,000. So what does that mean for affordability here in Asheville?

You'll see, at the very top, it's about $61,000 a year. If you break it down into your semi monthly or total monthly take home after taxes, that's just over $4,000 a month. And thanks to NerdWallet, we got a breakdown on how you should be spending your money, as you'll notice, $2,000 of your $4,000 that you're taking home should be part of your necessities. So it's rent, utilities, groceries, insurance, minimum debt payments, et cetera. How many people think that $2,000 is enough to necessarily make it in Asheville right now, if that's your necessities and your living by a wise budget. Yeah, it's an uphill battle at best, right? So, what's the average rent?

And if you have a rental property here in Asheville, you've probably noticed that that average rent has gone down over the last six to eight months, arguably a year. We talked about that a couple of different times from the stage here. And according to Zillow, Zillow agrees. Average rent, this is about $2,000 here in the actual area. Keep in mind, that is all houses, all properties, all bedroom counts, all square footage, et cetera, gives us that nice average of 2028. So, how much cows can you afford with that? So switching it over? We had our pay home, uh, paycheck take home calculator, so we're doing an affordability calculator. This is just reverse engineering it, right?

So if I've got an annual take home of about $61,000. If I have monthly debts of 250 bucks, and Dave Ramsey is thrilled right now, if that's where your number is, he's, like, stoked. Right? You get a down payment of about 10 grand lying around, and we're gonna do a 40% debt income ratio. Obviously, you can go a little bit higher with your loan agent. I wouldn't advise that, but if you did it, you can afford a $28,000 home in the Asheville MSA. So, our slide is interesting. All right, average price of home. Anybody know? Bungum County, average price, plus or minus? Exactly right.

580 is the average price across all price ranges in Buncombe County, but more specifically, let's talk about the median. Our lights aren't helping us. The median is $487,000. So what our median tells us, if we take all the homes, line them up from the least expensive to the most expensive, and grab the middle one. What this is saying is 50% or more of the homes are worth about $490, we'll call it, for fun. Right? Well, let's do that. What's the mortgage payment on that? So if we plug in our median number at the top there. We assume you have a 10% down payment, so you've got 49 grand in cash line around. Right? 30 year mortgage, you've got great credits, You're at a 7 point, or 6.8.

You're spending 3,200 bucks a month on your mortgage. Right? So, 3,200 out of your 4,000 take home, that's 80%. So now, remember, that's just one person, right? Dual income families are going to double that number, so that brings you down to the 40, but the margins are a little slim. And that's what we're going to talk. Next. So, according to Mountain Express. They did this very, very recent thing. The date will be here in a second. But it's about middle class affordability in the Asheville Metro area. So let's talk about it. from them, right? Middle class families need about 110,000, so if we double that 60, we're in the ballpark, right?

To cover necessities in the Asheville area, like housing food, childcare, et cetera, right? With a median income of 118, so remember doubling that 60, they're about there. They're left with $7,900. Let's call it eight grand, right? This is quite a bit below the national figure of about $22,000. But what does that mean exactly? So they provided us with a graph. So what that means is that top one is the median income, the dark blue. The one below it is the income required. How much does it cost to live there? And the difference is in yellow. How much am I left with? That's profit, right? net profit. What did I make? So it turns out, look at all these numbers for these major cities.

You can see them all there. This means, you have more money left in your pocket in the more expensive cities. than you do living in the area. I like this guy. He gets it. How is that possible? Right? So, in summary, basically, actual ranks is the least affordable major metropolitan in North Carolina. This is an issue. It's kind of driven by high housing, as you've seen, right? And rental costs that are outpacing wages. So it's kind of like setting it apart from other areas with higher paying jobs overall. And all this data is as of April first. Right? So let's go back here. So we're saying 59% is coming from these four places, right? And I would say one of these places is a bum, right?

That's the government. Those are tax dollars that are creating those jobs. It's not the economy necessarily, right? And if you've looked in the astral budget lately, the property taxes, an issue, right? So the key man risk comes to play. So if you had your own business, and 60% of your business depended on four people, would you feel good about that?

Dodie Stephens [0:00] And we know, 70%, you know, of spending that are, you know, that comes into our community through visitors, it happens outside of lodging establishments, that's happening at restaurants. And so continuing to prime that pump again, continuing to diversify our culture, and those opportunities is really what's just part of a healthy ecosystem all around.

Speaker 2 [0:18] All right, so on that, we're gonna move to the panel for the sake of getting everyone out of here at 7:30. So if we could please invite our panelists up, with a big round of applause, please. And if you could sit in the order of your cartoon heads, be awesome, but we'll live if you don't. To towel support. That's right, yeah, just in case.

Clark Duncan [0:40] Here, you just start. Sorry I shaved my beard. Otherwise, I look just... So disappointed, Clark.

Speaker 4 [0:46] Well, uh, we'll have an updated cartoon head for, uh, for the second appearance. You guessing? All right. Well, first off, thank you all so much for being here. Really excited to dig into, you know, in general, like, what are we doing to bring people here, to help actual growing? Obviously, we've had a couple of different panels since Helene and just talking about the importance of focusing on growth and bringing people back and encouraging. Now, as we said, spend money here and whatnot. So, before you even get into that, we'll start with you. Just maybe give us a quick introduction, who you are, and maybe the state of affairs for your respective organizations. Sure.

Dodie Stephens [1:23] Good evening. I'm Dodie Stevens. I'm the VP of Marketing at Explorer Asheville. I have lived in this community for 18 years. Um, currently live out in Fairview, and just, um, I just have to say, before any one of these things, it's like this, everyone in this room has been through a lot. And we've been through it as a community, and it's just, anytime we can get up, you know, and share that journey, and create some collective momentum is a good day. So I work at Explorer Asheville. We are the destination management and marketing organization for Buncombe County. Our role is creating community vitality and quality of life by driving demand through the visitor economy.

And, um, a quick summary of the state of affairs is a tall order, um, here post to lean. Um, uh, we were, um, so I would say that, um, out of the gate, um, we, you know, saw, I mean, the hurricane hit us, as we all know, at one of the most economically important times of our year, heading into the fall. Foliage season for travel and tourism community that was just a heartbreak on top of the physical damage, um, and beyond that we all experienced as a community. approximately 584 million in revenue lost during those first few months. We saw a 70. 74% drop in visitation the following month in October, as you can imagine, when we all shut down.

And then here at the top of the year, we are seeing signs of life, just like Helene's impact was not uniform across our community. Our recovery is happening. It is happening. And there are rays of lights, but it's happening in stages and pockets. So, one of the numbers that we track, since our marketing and marketing efforts are funded by lodging taxes, occupancy taxes, so occupancy is one of those numbers that we look to, demand was down only 6% in the month of February. Now, yeah, 6%, however, that it's looking different, depending on where you sit. I have Diane in the audience, who's with a B and B.

And she would have a different story than our mid level properties, who have seen a lot of business because of the recovery crews that are in town. But our B&Bs and our short term rentals are way down. So there's momentum happening in the community, but we have quite a ways to go.

Speaker 2 [4:10] Just quickly on that. If you looked at the live results from checking in, the majority of people were tourists before they lived here. And so you may have moved here, in part, thanks to Explorer actual. So...

Meghan Rogers [4:23] Uh, hi, everyone. I'm Megan Rogers. I'm executive director for Air, Asheville Independent Restaurants. Been there, just about two years, just a little over two years. Prior to that was with the downtown association. So I've been in Asheville for 20 some years. Dodie and I actually met on a fun food fam tour a long time ago. Um, Air is a 501 C 6, nonprofit membership organization. We have currently about 130 local independent restaurant members prior to the storm. We had about 150. So we've seen some loss there, whether those restaurants are permanently or temporarily closed. I think the number of food establishments that have closed in the area is closer to 40 or 50 at this point, however.

So we continue, unfortunately, to see some of those closures. For us, local independent restaurant means operated in and originated in Buncombe County. Um, you know, there are probably another 100 restaurants that could be members of air, so a lot of growth to be seen, and of the 15,000 or so people that are employed in Buncombe County and Food Service. We represent about 20% of those. So just work towards supporting our local independent restaurant community through marketing, education, advocacy, and all of those efforts.

Dodie Stephens [5:43] And I would just add, on top of Megan, that we can now say that 75% of hospitality businesses have reopened, post storm. Um, and, yeah, so we are seeing, we are seeing signs of momentum there. And, yeah, I mean, this is one in seven jobs in our community. It's 20%. Hospitality and tourism is 20% of our GDP here in Bugcomb County.

Clark Duncan [6:11] Guys, thanks for having us. I'm Clark Duncan, and I'm proud to serve as executive director for the Economic Development Coalition for Asheville and Bunken County. It's a long name. A marketer clearly didn't come up with that. We are a 30 year public private partnership, Buncombe County, the city of Asheville, the Asheville Chamber, focused on really growing quality of life in this community, which means a lot of the data points you pointed out, which is growing economic opportunity, it's growing wages.

It's growing sustained tax base expansion to fund both the ambitions of government and to moderate the tax obligations on the rest of us, property owners in the community, and always proud to share a stage with Megan and with Dodie that are partners in the work of growing the economy of Buncombe County. We all work with partners across Western North Carolina and regionalism as a whole other very important topic, but all of our organizations are focused on specifically Buncombe County jurisdictions.

Speaker 2 [7:17] Beautiful. Awesome. So with that, Clark will actually start with you and kind of zigzag back and forth throughout the night, but feel free to jump at any point. So, to open it up, we've got Postaline, right? Obviously, that is the number one focus here. So what would you say is the biggest challenge that Asheville faces in rebuilding its appeal to attract businesses and new residents.

Unknown [7:38] Yeah, that's not a small question.

Speaker 2 [7:40] It's not. So, we usually have a lot of questions and pepper them, but tonight, we have bigger questions.

Clark Duncan [7:44] Listen, I know we don't have doctors in the room, but yeah... So this analogy made a lot of sense to me, right? Like, how quickly we recover has a lot to do with how, what was the health of the patient before the injury, right? And all indications were, we were a community of tremendous momentum, we've made up a lot of ground. Yes, we lag. We continue to lag our state and our nation an average wages. It's a huge motivator for all of us, but we outpaced the state of North Carolina, and we outpaced the nation in an average year over year wage growth for the 10 years leading up to last Thursday when I quoted that to a large event. So, there's this sense that our underdog region.

And, yes, we are largely rural region that is catching up, but that is the sense of momentum we went into the storm with. In terms of our message, and maybe our greatest challenge going forward to sort of recapture that momentum, it's not unlike, and we can explore some of the nuances here, the messages that explore Asheville gives, and kind of that thoughtful invitation to outsiders to be part of our comeback. And I should name checking my colleague, Kevon Bayton, in the room tonight, who's our director of recruitment at the EDC. That strategy also has to mean the thoughtful invitation to outside investment, and outside employers, to be part of the comeback.

And there's so much brand affinity for this community. In a weekend when we were all mopping our basements and didn't have cell service. I was picking up occasional text messages from German manufacturers that we had met over the last 12 months wanting to know how we were doing. And so that brand equity translates, and it's while a different target audience, it's very similar to the messaging of tourism, and that we have to very aggressively reach out to the community outside of Western North Carolina, to talk about our business readiness. Yes, we have, we're hurting, there's certain parts of our community that will be rebuilding for years.

There are others that are up and running and going to town. But our messages need to be very consistent to the outside world, and it's an invitation to be part of the recovery of this community. Because we'll need them.

Meghan Rogers [10:25] Yes. Am I on? All the all the yes's to that. We also unfortunately have to combat all the negative imagery that people saw. Um, there were 1000000000s. Dodie probably knows the number. There were billions of impressions. of disaster, of flooding, of houses, businesses going down the river. So we have to combat that with what's happening in real time. And what's happening in real time is businesses are open. Businesses are needing customers. You're just combating that imagery with what's happening now, and the invitation, as Clark said, to come back and to do it with heart, and to understand that there are parts of our community that aren't ready yet. And, um, but a lot of it is.

And we need you, and we need you to come back. So, I just think combating that negative imagery. It's super important, and something I know Explorer Asheville is working very hard on.

Dodie Stephens [11:20] Hear, hear. Some data that we are really closely watching, uh, these days is traveler sentiment, and specifically within the context of crisis. So what we've seen since the storm, um, is that, um, you know, there still are gaps, uh, in terms of, and as you would imagine. I mean, think about yourself and the amount of news that you're taking in every day. What the headline landscape looks like, what the national landscape looks like right now, and think back to something you might have seen about a community, you know, far from where you live. We all there's a spectrum of awareness. Some folks may be very aware of what happened. And others, it's not on their radar at all.

And so that really is an interesting line as a marketer, um, to, you know, to strategize within, right? But we have seen some gains, as far as potential visitors understanding that Asheville is open for business, but we still have a long way to go, you know, between people thinking we're open, partially open, and so for us, and not just the fact that not just awareness, as to whether Asheville is open and welcoming, but also that they feel confident and comfortable in booking a trip here, and knowing that the experience that they have, that they're going to have here is the one that they're expecting. You know, it's sometimes hard to get your arms around here as a community member.

We have are so aware of the high impact areas that are still needing recovery. You know, I live out Guaren Creek, and I drive through it every day. And then we've also see these, like, wonderful, you know, comeback stories that are happening in micro districts, like the River Arts district, where they've been able to open 20%.

So for us, we're really focusing on being able to tell that bigger story, because if you look across Buncombe County as a whole, Asheville area as a whole, you know, roughly, and this is back at the Napkin math, but roughly 90% of our, you know, traveler experience, is what visitors, you know, that a visitor could have today is what they would expect to have when they come here. However, we are combating, and just and mindfully communicating alongside our community, our progress, but we've had to be very clear in terms of our message strategy. And that's been an evolving thing, you know, in the first days when we turned back on the advertising.

It was plan a return trip with Hart, and we quickly realized that we had to be, you know, showing open signs and open doors and smiling faces, and we're open, you know, be part of the comeback, which is where we are today. Awesome.

Speaker 2 [14:13] So, if you don't mind, I'd like to jump in with something, Clark, that you had mentioned here, right? And it was kind of the brand equity. And the little note I have is the brand equity versus change, right? So, Asheville prides itself on being court game weird and all the things that Asheville is, right? And so we've had everyone from city representatives to county representatives to the zoning planning, and kind of a big sentiment that happens here, and that meets a lot of resistance in our core focus, which is generally real estate. It's kind of the nimbi attitude, right? The not in my backyard. We're usually fighting an uphill battle to get any sort of hard, meaningful or drastic change.

How do you think this has affected that roadblock or attitude, as I would call it, and maybe I'm mischaracterizing it, but so far, in my experience, I don't know that I am. So how would you characterize that versus the need for change, if you agree?

Clark Duncan [15:01] That feels like a softball, but I'll take it. Nice. Good. So, I won't bore you guys with the last nine months, we undertook an update of our strategic plan, interrupted by the storm, and now it is really an economic recovery plan. But I had this thought last summer, which was really, that the plan needed to be needed to challenge Asheville's sense of complacency. Meaning, we've got a lot of ambitions as a community, right? In terms of growing our quality of life, and growing our standards of living, growing the wages you point to, and that requires unity of purpose.

You know, we're a small town, small enough, their relationships matter big enough to do big things together when you look at our the preservation of our downtown, the preservation of our down but not out river district. Like, those were massive multi-decade undertakings. Um, and so, I think, you know, when it comes to, What I hope we can get out of this is a change of a little bit of that attitude. And and and so and here's and here's what I think we've all seen, right? Since the storm. Smaller problems fall away, right? We took care of our homes and our families first, our neighbors and our communities second, when we could chainsaw our way out of the neighborhood.

We got to the office, and then we fed one another, and we did all sorts of remarkable things for the last six months. But what I heard consistently over that 6 months was this fear that, yes, we need to recover, but we didn't want to lose ground because we are still that underdog community. And so the idea that we might start 10 paces back. Because of this was kind of unacceptable, right?

And so I think we do have an opportunity, and it's not the old, like, make an opportunity at a crisis speech, but it's a, do we have an opportunity to leverage this unity of spirit that we're also very proud of right now, to focus on big, big ticket items, like, what is really important to the importance, to the future of the community. How do we what's important to keeping that next generation, which is, by the way, a perennial conversation in Asheville and Buncombe County, which is, and my wife grew up here, went to Reynolds. I won't tell you what year.

But, like, how can that next generation find enough sticky economic opportunity, and then, to your point, afford to make their way and fulfill their potential here. So those are, to me, things that get me excited about the work that we all do together, and yes, I think there's an opportunity now to led a little of the Nimbism go and think about what's good for, if it's good for my neighbor, it's good for me, and that's kind of really what makes Western North Carolina special to me. So I hope we continue in that pain. How's that?

Speaker 2 [18:08] I mean, I agree with the sentiment. Did you, Megan, did you want to maybe add something?

Meghan Rogers [18:13] No, I couldn't actually say anything better than what Clark just said. I'm over here just like, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 [18:20] All right, so my question is definitely going to be a little bit challenging, not because of the actual question, but I'm going to ask you, like everybody's talked a lot about messaging a little bit here. And I know that just something personally. It feels like there's a lot of messaging. So I was wondering is maybe a shorter question, a shorter answer to the question is if there is one specific message that you are wanting somebody to take away on for each of your respective organizations. Like, what's the takeaway? somebody leaves here and they're like, oh, like, you know, what is TDA doing? Like, what's the answer? Or what's air doing? Like, what is that?

one to two, maybe 3 sentence answer of the unifying message. Maybe without the context, if you will. But that would spark the curiosity. And start over here.

Dodie Stephens [19:05] I mean, I think we, we already said it with that, be part of the comeback. You know, it really is. Um, it's not just us out front with marketing. You know, the really cool thing, I know you wanted us to give three words. I'm just not a three word person. I have context for everything, But, um, one of the things that has been such an, like, a special, like, awakening through and learning through this, this crisis was just the strength of our destination brand in terms of being rooted in the voice of our community. So, the stories that we tell and how we tell them are built upon thousands of conversations with community members.

And so when we talk about, and through it all, we're always Asheville. Be part of the comeback. You know, that's the community's voice speaking.

Meghan Rogers [19:52] We've seen such a, um, ground swell, I guess, of local support for our local businesses, um, over the last few months, and that is hugely... I can't tell you how many times people come to me and say, I'm going out to eat two or three times a week, four times a week, five times a week. Thank you. We're grateful for that. Um, just a reminder that... Oh, I hate to... I'm a little bit afraid to... Plug it, Megan. You're money. Money is better spent in a local business. A locally owned, independent business. It's just true. Um, it it expands better throughout the community. I don't know the numbers on it. I wish I had thought of getting that.

But when you spend $10 in a local restaurant, you know, that $10 goes back to the community. It's so important to continue to support your local businesses, and we just are continuing to just push that message as much as we can and continue to ask our locals to do that. And working with Explorer Asheville, making sure that our visitors know that it's important to support our local businesses, and not just restaurants. Restants are important. Breweries are important, but retail, services. All of these things are super important. So supporting local just goes that extra mile.

Clark Duncan [21:14] What I love about this panel is you've got lots of different parts of that pie chart that you guys pointed out here on stage today. And I think the word, like, economic diversification is often misunderstood. Economic diversification is about growing the whole pie. Like it's not about diminishing sectors in this economy. And Asheville has trailed the rest of the state of North Carolina for too long for us to think through that narrow lens. So I think when we think about growing all of those areas and you flashed up some areas where I spend a lot of time, advanced manufacturing, huge opportunities.

One of your questions, I don't want to jump the gun, it's like, what brings young people to Asheville? Well, a couple things. One is the next generation thinks differently than our parents' generation, right? They are chasing lifestyle and economic opportunity follows lifestyle, right? They want to think about, where do we want to, what's the life I want to lead, how do I feel fulfilled, and then how do I find economic opportunity to stay there? And then how do I build a family in that community, if that's what I choose to do?

But in the halls that I walk, the faces of young engineers, or procurement specialists, or HR professionals, a GE, or Thermofisher, or Borg Warner, Turbo, or Pratt and Whitney, these are four, 6, and 8 year degree professionals in their 20s that are moving here and putting down roots, and can afford some of those extraordinary housing prices that you printed up there. And so those are, that's a part of our strategy as a community is that continued growth of thinking about and welcoming in migration, because in migration is what creates economic opportunity. Shutting the gate doesn't create economic opportunity. diminishes it pretty quickly.

So the idea of like, how can we be a place where young, educated, ambitious people want to put down roots? That becomes that feeds workforce and workforce feeds the industries that we need to continue to grow and create jobs in this community.

Speaker 2 [23:35] So many questions. All right, so we're gonna go slightly off script, 'cause you're touching a lot of areas, and it's a good discussion, and that's kind of the point of the night, right? So, one of the things you had mentioned earlier is how Ash or Western North Carolina, I believe, is the whole you were saying, has outpaced the rest of North Carolina, potentially nationally, kind of the increase in the median wage over the last 10 years. Right? Wage group. Wage group. Wage growth. Okay. So, one of the things we talk about a lot, consistently.

So, I run this thing called the Rhees Report, I do all of, like, the real estate data, we've written articles about Helene and the actual raw data of 2 House, what has happened with what we call the Helene Homes and in the recovery. And one of the things that we keep talking about is kind of the disconnect between the housing economy here, which I would argue is outpace the nation as well. Amen. Right? And has kind of negated the gains in wage growth, right? And until very recently, that same pattern is held for rents, right? And Rodriguez can certainly speak to that.

Like, right now, if you look at the breakdown of the average cost of the home, plus the interest rate, You should look into renting, if you don't know how long you're going to be here, right? So when we were talking about this, as we were creating the questions, and it's very difficult to pare them down, because it's so wide ranging, we were speaking exactly to that, right? Which was your point about the four to six year degree person who's coming here and actually can afford it, and then all these numbers make sense. So I've lived in downtown Manhattan and L.A.

and D.C., and I've lived in these places, but you make more money, and so the rent is proportionately larger, but you're able to do that, which isn't necessarily happening here, and this is a very roundabout way of saying that those companies, in general, are bent on efficiency and employ less people overall. And so, even though it's absolutely amazing to increase that segment, and like you're talking about, it's not a zero sum game, just because there's more manufacturing, there's not less anything, ideally, we get Adam Smith's invisible hand, and there's more everything, because there's more money going around, right?

So attracting young people, all these things, we might land the plane here. We're off track.

Meghan Rogers [25:29] Right? I'm with you. I'm with you. All right, cool.

Speaker 2 [25:32] Someone is. All right, so it's basically, how then do we attract those industries? Because question three, we skipped, uh, was basically, Hey, do we double down on tourism? Because we've had Katie Button, Molly, Irani from Chai Pani, right? We've had Susan Applin. We've had, like, Jordan Terturn from the Horseshoe Farm. We've had a lot of the stalwarts, like the heavy hitters in the hospitality industry. And we're always talking about how, essentially, fragile that is, and Dodie, to your point, we missed the Super Bowl this year, right? And all those restaurants and industries are fighting off COVID debt, as well.

So our question that we didn't get to get to is, do we double down on tourism in this hospitality and everything, or do we start focusing on these other industries? So, how do we attract young people, which is basically the next question, right? What are your respective agencies doing, if that makes sense, to kind of attract that demographic? We may have landed it, we may not. We'll see. And I can rephrase it now that I've got it all out of my head if you need that.

Clark Duncan [26:28] And I think it's a pretty, it's a more comprehensive answer than you would think. Um, even our larger, like, pure manufacturing plays, right? 100, 500,000 million square foot facilities. And there are throughout the mountains, and people just don't always see them, are here because of the, because of the workforce and labor force story they have. And that story is true because of our continued growth in immigration, right? So they come because we have a 12 county labor shed. They come because of our ability to attract young, new, upwardly mobile professionals. In my business used to be a real estate game, right? Like 17 years ago, I think I celebrated today. Kivon.

It was like, do you have the right piece of, you know, do you have the right 30 acre site for my plant? That's just not how economic development happens anymore. It's about, it's a data analysis game of, like, how, what is the, what's the complexion of your economy and what are your labor analytics look like? And so I think all of these pieces work together, because if we didn't have 7 James Beard nominated chefs, and forgive me, I'm throwing a number out there, it's around there.

Meghan Rogers [27:51] Hopefully more tomorrow. Sorry?

Clark Duncan [27:53] Wow. 16 and pending. That sounds like a teaser. I don't know. Um, that's just one of the, that's just one of the things that make our, make Asheville a very corporate, a very attractive place for corporate investment, I guess, was my point.

Speaker 2 [28:08] I was gonna say, kind of passing the mic.

Meghan Rogers [28:09] I mean, I feel like that's sort of a setup for me, thanks. Yeah, exactly. I think food, culture, arts, retail. I mean, obviously my focus is food and restaurants. But it's the reason you mentioned that people are looking for a lifestyle before maybe looking for jobs and economic mobility. And I think our food scene is, I mean, I don't know, it's unparalleled, I think, but it's a reason that people decide to make. Or at least it's one of the factors that they consider when they're moving here. So, um, but it's also a job, a career. I think people look at food service as, like, a stepping stone job a lot of times.

And we spend a lot of time thinking about, how do we make people aware that this is a career? Like, we've seen servers, become shift managers, become GMs, become COOs of probably the largest or one of the largest restaurant groups in town, or a dishwasher, becomes a cook, becomes a line cook, becomes a Sioux, and starts their own restaurant, and starts that whole thing all over again. That's economic development, too. And a smaller scale. But it's economic mobility. And we spend a lot of time thinking about that. And how do we change the perception that a restaurant job is just a filler job or a job that you take when you're in college or waiting to get that next opportunity.

And so I'm going to set up Doty, because Clark did so nice for me. Um, explore Asheville recently put out a scholarship for culinary and hospitality, um, folks in a secondary institution, and so they see it too. They see this the workforce development piece as part of that economic development strategy, and that's important, too.

Dodie Stephens [29:47] Yeah, I mean, we say it all the time. If you come to another panel that I happen to be on, I'll probably say it there, but tourism is the front porch to economic development, and we work very closely, um, with EDC, and, um, because we understand that, you know, the reasons that visitors come here, those quality of life elements are the same reasons that people come to, to live here, to start business, businesses. And, um, I mean, Clark, I still remember the pitch that I worked on with you, um, where I didn't know... It was for new Belgium when they were looking, and I didn't know who we were pitching.

But he asked me to come in from explore Asheville and give a presentation on Asheville's culinary scene, specifically our craft beer culture. And I didn't know who I was presenting to, and that quality of life thing was what lit up the room, and ultimately what helped, in addition to all of the amazing legwork that your team did, but was one of the pieces that helped secure that kind of business for our community. 210 jobs and $200 million an investment later.

Clark Duncan [30:49] Yeah.

Dodie Stephens [30:50] Yeah. So, and we know, 70%, you know, of spending that comes into our community through visitors, it happens outside of lodging, establishments. That's happening at restaurants. And so continuing to prime that pump, and continuing to diversify our culture, and those opportunities, is really why. part of a healthy ecosystem all around.

Speaker 4 [31:10] So, one of my favorite things to say, I want to talk to people about Ashville. I'm like, Don't come visit unless you want to live here, 'cause it feels like it's a very sticky place, right? Like, you know, if you did the survey. It was, like, half the people. We're tourists before they made this home. Um, when you all are focusing, you know, you said that's the front porch, tourism's the front porch for economic development, when you're when you're thinking about that, and when you're kind of brainstorming messaging and coordinating with the rest of the panel, do you think of developing other opportunities, and this is kind of circling around a similar question, I think we've talked about it.

It just feels like live and die in tourism doesn't seem to be a great idea, and it feels like that's kind of what it, the messages, or that's what the brand feels like, but then, you know, obviously, Clark's been sharing, doesn't seem like that's the case, and just wondering, are there other opportunities that need brighter light, or that need to be started from the beginning instead?

Dodie Stephens [32:05] And I think that's a great opportunity for me to share, you know, the full picture, in addition to our work with EDC. But the full picture of what Explorer Asheville does. So, you know, yes, we are priming that pump for the leisure travelers, but we have a whole business development. with specialists in sports development, film. We also have, um, a granting mechanism called the tourism product development fund that has invested 90 Tiffany's in the audience, 96 million since 2001, um, through our TPDF and our legacy, um, investment improvement projects. These are... These are working in various ways, um, to develop the community in a well rounded way.

And so, those investments are geared to increased quality of life in the community, and to also then inspire visitation.

Unknown [33:03] Megan.

Meghan Rogers [33:05] I think this is the question about diversity of tourism. yeah Is that where we're at? It was as differently. I expect you to say let's double down, but... I mean, we need to, we need to get back to our levels of tourism. That's the, yes, they do help support, not help. They help sustain our restaurant and other businesses. But a diversity in visitor is always important, and evolution is always important. Finding new ways to bring new people here is great, but also new ways to bring people back. You know, a repeat visitor is a great visitor.

And if you find new ways to bring them back, whatever that looks like, whether it's new restaurants or new outdoor activities or new arts related, performing arts related things to do. I mean, that's always that sustained visitor is a great customer to have in our back pocket to help sustain our economy always. So, you know, I think looking forward and diversifying is always a good thing.

Clark Duncan [34:06] I'm gonna, um, zero in on what you ask about, like, opportunities. Like, right, what is that potential?

Speaker 4 [34:12] Yeah, like, are there other opportunities that we're not aware of that you guys are focusing in on?

Clark Duncan [34:18] And so many in the room might be familiar with one of our strategies at DDC is we run the programs of Venture Asheville. And that, you know, 10 years ago, 11 years ago, we had the understanding that we're not going to recruit our way out of what our aspirations for this community. So how do we plant those seeds and grow that next generation of Asheville headquartered businesses. And Poppy's popcorn is a great example. It's a product we all know and love. Y'all, they did $9 million in sales last year. We just helped Ginger Frank move into her 1st 50,000 square foot manufacturing facility.

Like, these are the kind of stories that we all champion, and it comes from, and Ginger wouldn't have had the same success in markets that where her brand recognition didn't go back to your 16 top drive markets or fly markets and then buy their product. So it's a really interesting opportunity we have to grow businesses, especially businesses that are ambitious enough to scale outside of Asheville and to develop business and grow their footprint and their brand outside of, you know, across the nation and across the globe.

So, one of the things we've seen that I took great confidence in over the last several years, and this data exercise we just did for our strategic plan, was over the last 5 years, we've seen 83%, this is percentage growth in employment and information technology. Those are $150,000 average wages in the IT sector, something like 65% growth in our professional in business services sector, right? Think accounting, uh, legal resources, engineering resources, those, those services that, that large companies, as they grow and scale, all of a sudden can afford to, to buy out of house.

And so whether you are a locally headquartered hotel chain that's now buying and all of and acquiring all of those accounting and legal services locally or a manufacturer, like an AVL technologies, that is locally headquartered and scaling here. Those are really exciting opportunities. Where, again, we see this inkling of a really exciting growth leading up toward this moment in time, when we take the hit of the storm.

So I think when we look to the future for the next five years, and, really, frankly, the next 15 years, we're thinking about how do we continue those opportunities, and how do we cultivate in migration, which is going to be necessary to continue to feed the labor force for those? And then you think about, okay, do we have the right educational ecosystem, whether it's AB Tech, or our university systems, and how do we get more investment from the NC States, and the UNC Charlottes, and the NC, like, ANTs here, so we are creating a lot of that STEM environment here. And then you have this virtuous cycle. So it's people moving here, it's being able to train, whether they're natives or visitors.

I have this great phrase that I love. I don't know where it came from, but residents are simply visitors gone native, right? Because whether you've been here 24 months or 24 years or your whole life, there's that sense that we all feel like, like, people that in Asheville are here because they're here on purpose. They're not here accidentally. They didn't get transferred here, and they're just here out of some obligation to family or a job. And so I think, I see opportunities in those specific sectors to continue to achieve community aspirations.

Speaker 2 [38:08] Awesome. Thank you, guys. So many questions again, but we're almost done. So we're gonna do one question, move to lightning round, and then open it up to audience QA, where people will participate, and we will pass this mic around, all right? So, the last question for our lightning round is if you could implement one idea to help Asheville attract businesses and new residents with full support from elected officials. So this idea may not be something you could do right now, back to the Nimbi stuff, what would it be? And they are all speaking as individuals and not representing their organizations right now.

Dodie Stephens [38:40] I would say, we've been looking at some data around how our tourism product development projects are performing, and I may have mentioned this before, or maybe it was a sidebar conversation, I can't remember, but we've been looking at how they're performing, and terms of the ratio of residents who enjoy them versus visitors, because that's ultimately the goal with those, you know, greenways, and, um, sports facilities, arts facilities, And one thing that came up, again and again, in the data, was the balance, the really strong balance for sports and for the arts.

And that's another thing that we've seen in terms of our, the momentum we are working to get as a community, is the power in events, um, in terms of generating immediate business, but also a potential calling card as folks who attend them, you know, go back home and have something to say, think about SoCon here in Asheville. We had stadium full of folks who were, you know, on camera with local news stations, saying they can't wait to go back to tell everyone, you know, how great the community's doing. So I would say, um, we would be continuing to look for support.

And as we dream big as a community of, we have this moment to do so, looking at, you know, performing arts, um, performing arts development, or sports resources would be something that would, you know, support quality of life, um, on a number in a number of ways here.

Meghan Rogers [40:24] Are you ready for the unsexiest answer ever? Um, I think an overhaul of our unified development ordinance would help, I know, not sex, would help, um, would help make building more housing in particular workforce housing, commercial districts, easier, less take less time, um, more, be less pricey, also retain art, the culture, and the, and the unique elements of Asheville will also going into smart and transit oriented development. That's just what I think.

Clark Duncan [41:02] Teed you up. Thank you. Thank you, Megan. Housing, housing, housing, housing, housing. So housing. That, and this is how you began, and maybe we end is, affordability is such a constraint on future economic growth. We have an opportunity. We all hear about millions of dollars that will come to our community. They're not gonna come to us. They're not gonna come to our pockets. They're gonna come to our governmental partners, and I think it's important that we advocate that we take advantage of that moment, that we maybe move the needle in affordable housing, in some way, but it's not just affordable housing. It's workforce housing. It's housing at all price points.

We are blessed by this topography, and we want to respect and love this topography and this environment. But if we can't get behind dense urban housing on major transportation corridors, then we're tripping over ourselves. We don't have time to trip over ourselves anymore. We need dense urban housing where it makes sense. And that will lift a major constraint on affordability. It'll lift a major constraint on affordability and economic growth that we all aspire to. So, I think there's, I think there's the will to do that, but I think it needs people showing up when they're for something, as much as people showing up when they're against it.

Speaker 2 [42:30] Shameless plug to us. So we hold a annual affordable housing, basically, panel and symposium, right? So we had Vadilla, who was one of the city planners coming and talking about zoning. We've had three years of this, and the big call from that is like, you can do something about this. You can show up to the city council meetings and all of your government elected officials. We didn't even plan that, did we? No, we didn't. And you can do something about it. So if you go to our podcast, you can listen to those and learn everything that there is to know about that. All right, so lightning round, lightning, quick answers. We have a hook.

Speaker 4 [43:00] We will be pulling people off stage if they go... All right. So this one's easy because there's a number. So it's what's the number one request, so only one request from your members or the communities that you represent, or the, you know, organizations that you represent, as far as what they need to, for have, for 25 to be, uh, completed bounce back here. And you guys can, whoever knows the answer to that right off the back.

Meghan Rogers [43:29] For us, it's business gants or forgivable loans to replenish reimbursement costs, job creation, job retention, and business continuity.

Dodie Stephens [43:39] Yeah, I mean, in addition to grants. It's money in cash registers. That's, you know, that's what our community needs in order to, you know, for those businesses that we love, that make life worth living in Asheville to make it through.

Clark Duncan [43:53] Our small businesses are still hung over on COVID debt. grants, grants, grants, is the course that we echo to our state and federal legislators, and just as importantly, and we just concluded a 15 county business impact survey, it's business in the cash register. So it's the return of demand, which is the go forward answer, but the catch up answer is grants to support our most at risk businesses.

Speaker 2 [44:24] So, Jody, 2 things I was going to mention when you were speaking is, one is, when you say it's 7 times, people might hear it for the first time, right? And one of the great distinguished distinguishers between branding and marketing is marketing is what you say about your company or brand and branding is what people say about it, right? So in one sentence, what is the most important takeaway you want the audience to remember from today's discussion?

Dodie Stephens [44:47] Well, gosh, I would just hope that they would understand that they have a multifaceted organization and explore Asheville that's working for them, not just in demand generation, for leisure travelers, but also on the business development, and also alongside them as community members, and really, that's what I hope for any opportunity, in front of an audience.

Meghan Rogers [45:12] Um, I would say look at your spending habits and do everything you can to support local, small, independent businesses. Buy an air.

Dodie Stephens [45:22] Buy an air pass. buy an air pass, give them as gifts, client gifts, they are amazing new client gifts. Please, please. you.

Speaker 4 [45:31] All right. Clark, did you answer? Sorry. Got distracted on the sidebar over here.

Clark Duncan [45:36] Only that I would, I would love everyone to lift their voice to that course of like, let's, let's, let's dare greatly right now that, like, this idea that we don't have time to lose, like, this is a time to be ambitious, not just about recovery and caring for those most impacted households and businesses, of course. But how can we leverage this time and the one time occurrence of recovery funding to really get ambitious about where Western North Carolina and Asheville, Buncombe County specifically. What do we want to be when we grow up, like now is the time to raise those voices. But that community pride in action.

Speaker 4 [46:16] All right. Last question. Super easy. One word. If you could describe Asheville's economic outlook for 2025 in one word, what would it be? If you need to think about it, we'll skip. So whoever wants to go first, go. And then audience questions coming next. get ready. The box is flying soon.

Meghan Rogers [46:36] I mean, I guess I'll go with Hopeful. Nice. Sorry to steal that easy answer from everybody else. again.

Dodie Stephens [46:46] Um, yeah. I'm I'm seeing momentum.

Clark Duncan [46:53] Future so bright. would love to tell you later when I think why I think so. beautiful.

Speaker 4 [47:02] Hey guys, Rodrigo here. wanted to say thank you for taking the time to listen into this month's panel conversation. We hope that you join us in person at next month's meeting. You can find out more at AVLmeetup.com. We primarily meet on the 1st Tuesday of every month, but be sure to check out our website, AVLmeetup.com. You can also watch this conversation on YouTube at AVLmeetup. Also, I have a quick announcement. We started a property management company called Vesta Property Management. So if you're looking for third-party management for long-term rental, we'd love the opportunity to talk to you. Our goal at Vesta is to turn houses into homes and investments in 2 returns.

If you're looking to work with a third-party management company, that will allow you to have peace of mind and experience freedom around rentals. Uh, reach out to us. We can help make that happen for you. bestapm.com. What's going on, everyone?

Speaker 2 [48:00] Zach here to close it out before you sign off for the day. If you liked the data driven portion of today's meetup, then I'd love to take a moment to tell you about the Ruiz Report and REMC.co. If you're a real estate professional, then you know that you should become the local economist of choice, but you're probably unsure of how to learn the skills required. That's where the Ruiz Report comes in. We offer customized market reports to promote your business, training videos so you learn how to interpret the market data, and monthly quizzes to keep you sharp. Learn more at reseport.com and sign up for a free account to watch all of our training videos at no cost.

If you're more interested in the live data and some data and analytics dashboards, then I highly suggest you check out ramc.co. REMC.co is the 1st of its kind, data and analytics dashboards for the real estate industry. Now, you have to be an active participating member of the MLS in order to sign up, but it is unparalleled data on every market participant, whether that's an office, a listing, or one of the realtors. Again, you can find out more about REMC.co at REMC.co. As always, thanks for listening, and we hope to see you at one of our next meetups.

If you can't make it and you still want to be part of the movers and shakers, then sign up for a free account at AVLmeetup.com and get yourself into our member directory. Thanks again. See you next month.