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
Mike Andress
Host, Exploration Local
828-551-9065
mike@explorationlocal.com
Podcast Website
Facebook
Instagram: explorationlocal
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
Mike Andress
Host, Exploration Local
828-551-9065
mike@explorationlocal.com
Podcast Website
Facebook
Instagram: explorationlocal
From its industrial past to a future teeming with ecotourism 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, which is 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. Our exploration doesn't stop there. We dissect the ambitious redevelopment plans for the iconic mill site and emphasize the importance of community engagement and cultural preservation. Canton is not just a picturesque destination but a beacon of community collaboration and innovative growth. This episode is a testimony to the power of resilience and adaptation in rewriting a town's narrative. Join us as we witness Canton's journey from past to present and we peek into the promising chapters of its future. I'll see you on the other side.
Speaker 1:You're listening to Exploration Local, a podcast designed to explore and celebrate the people and places that make the Blue Ridge and Southern Appalachian Mountains special and unique. My name is Mike Andrus, the host of Exploration Local. Join us on our journey to explore these mountains and discover how they fuel the spirit of adventure. We encourage you to wander far, but explore local. Let's go Well, nick, I cannot thank you enough for driving over today. Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me Happy to be here.
Speaker 1:You are the town manager, or at least as of last week you're the town manager. We're going to say a little bit more about that towards the end. But what does a town manager do? What's the function of a town manager?
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question. So my background is in planning and before I came to the town of Canton that was my work experience, so I think I asked those same questions prior to coming to this job. But it basically you're basically running the day to day operations of the town. So everything from police and fire operations to water production, wastewater treatment, tax collection, finance, sort of all the inner workings of the way a town works are under the purview of a town manager, and in North Carolina traditionally the setup is a kind of a manager council form of government. So I'm appointed and serve at the pleasure of my board, but then pretty much everyone under my position is then a hired position.
Speaker 1:Okay, and how long have you been in this role, Nick?
Speaker 2:I've been with the town of Canton since 2018. I've been town manager for the last three years.
Speaker 1:One of the things I love to sort of set the stage with, because some of our listeners many of our listeners are right here, but there's also many 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 in 04 and 05, the town of Canton had two major storms back to back. You had the. We've had the recession, covid, fred basically decimated in 2021. Then we have the mill closing in 2023.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's one thing for one thing to happen to a community, but we're talking about over the last 20 years, two decades, a lot has happened and yet the people seem resilient, and so I love to use that sort of as a backdrop and just talk about the resiliency of the people, the things that they've had to face, the things that you've had to do in terms of your providing leadership as you've moved through some of these, at least since 2018. Let's set it up there and then we'll kind of move into why this is so important that we're talking about today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so, as I like to give this quote. My mayor is known for being able to give these anecdotal quotes. But after the mill closure announcement happened, there were some small earthquakes that happened in Haywood County and nothing very impactful, but enough to make the news make the news. And we were in a meeting talking about sort of how we transitioned from the mill closure and our mayor is on record as saying, after we found out about the earthquakes, that Canton is a locust plague away from a revelation bingo card. And as funny as that is, and you know, it's the truth, and Canton has seen a lot in the last 25 years and I think what makes this special story is just how resilient those people are and the fact that, despite all the things that you just listed of, you know culture and pride based around you know this town that's, you know, 15, 20 miles west of Asheville.
Speaker 1:Wow. So, you know something that you said really I was thinking about this even last night this morning, just kind of preparing for for this interview that it almost seems like your best days are ahead, like you're rewriting the story of Canton. But it really seems like, I mean, excuse me, your best days are definitely ahead, but it definitely seems like you're like we're in the middle of you writing the town of Canton, the people of Canton, rewriting the story of the town, which is amazing to be a part of, I would imagine.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's very humbling, I think, when I actually step back and kind of take perspective on that and you'll hear me use some flowery language in the podcast, but I think you know we would consider it a manifest destiny moment. The town was formed exclusively around manufacturing and you had a mill that was created 115 years ago. It's the reason that we have our downtown sort of historic district. It's the reason why we have all the housing stock and all the density. I mean, the mill is the origin story for Canton and so now that that's gone we're pivoting and we've got to look elsewhere and figure out sort of what that Canton 2.0 is, and it's scary and exciting and interesting and unbelievably complex. But you're right, that's exactly where we are right now.
Speaker 1:Which is really a good segue into really what we're going to talk about for the lion's share of it today is how do you take the natural amenities, the natural assets around you that become the new place? So there's a new sense of place-based economics and it really started with a really phenomenal story that could have gone a couple of different directions with the property. So we're talking about Chestnut Mountain. There's a lot to unpack here. There is, but I think one thing that'd be really cool is like let's talk about what it could have been, what the direction it was going, because that would have been far different than where we are today.
Speaker 2:That's right, yeah, so this parcel is 450 acres. It's about a mile and a quarter from our downtown. Historically it was used for cattle grazing and agriculture. It was also a place I think you know I have got a lot of public work staff and people that work for the town that actually there was a time when you could pay $100 a year or some monetary number and basically be able to ride dirt bikes or hunt, or you know it's been used by the community in informal ways for a long time. In the early 2000s there were some investors that came in and it was slated to actually be a NASCAR training facility. That's crazy.
Speaker 2:So the Melodome was shutting down in Asheville, the dirt track there in the River Arts District so they were looking for a new location to be able to run NASCARs and so there were preliminary designs and engineering done.
Speaker 2:There were soil, roads cut, Property was clear, cut in a lot of places and timbered.
Speaker 2:There was a large multimillion dollar bridge that was built at the base of the mountain and then for various reasons that project was shuttered and it was kind of left basically high and dry and then a few years later there was the prospect of an indoor ski slope being built there.
Speaker 2:So there's been lots of different concepts and ideas about what the property could be, but none of those really came to fruition and so it sat for about 20 years. And it was through a wildlife corridor study done by the Wildlands Network that was looking at animals migrating from Sandy Mush to Pisgah National Forest that this was actually targeted by Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy as a potential property to acquire. So their model typically is to fundraise and acquire property and then turn that over to land managers such as the town of Canton to basically preserve and hold conservation easements on. So their model typically is more conservation-based and this was one of the first projects that they worked on that was that marriage of sort of conservation and recreation, which is the future, and really amazing, unbelievable partners to work with just from start to finish. Can't speak highly enough about them.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's great, and so this parcel of land was just gifted, right?
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:To the town of Canton, I mean, and that's not an inexpensive proposition?
Speaker 2:four million and so they approached us in 2019. So I'd been with the town for about a year, I was serving as planning director, assistant town manager, and they basically Honey Meritor came to us through Southern Appalachian and asked hey, would you guys be interested in acquiring this property? And we looked at a map and realized it was a mile and a quarter from downtown and had really interesting terrain and good connectivity, good you know, basically sort of good infrastructure and assets already on the ground. So it was a no brainer for the town and so we very quickly agreed to that SAHC sort of set off to start the fundraising process.
Speaker 1:You had other people that started to come alongside you at the very same time. So we know Seth Alvo, and a lot of 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 in his channel. But there were other things that were sort of happening along the way of that too, and so the funding for this is really interesting because it's a lot of different sources. And so I wonder if you can kind of unpack that a little bit too.
Speaker 2:Of course. So, you know, as we started to move through process of working with SAHC, it was, you know, clear from the outset that we were going to need to do a lot of sort of high-level master planning to inform all the activities that were going to go on on the mountain, to inform, you know, to be informed by the conservation easements, to make sure that you know the end uses for the property were going to improve water quality and improve the natural amenities that were already there. So as we started to work through that master planning process, you know we knew that we wanted to create sort of a multi-use park, something that would accommodate all levels of hikers and bikers and families and just something that could really serve our community. So as we started to look at the master planning process, we were having some conversations with our local advocacy group, piscisorba, and they had been in conversation with Seth Alvo, and so, if you don't know Seth, he's got a huge social media, youtube presence and at that time he was looking to basically crowdfund a free public bike park in Western North Carolina and so, without throwing any other municipalities under the bus, he had gone to a number of cities and towns in the region and had sort of proposed this idea and, for varying reasons, they said no.
Speaker 2:And so when we were in conversation with Pisces Sorba, they made that connection with Seth. We actually met on the property and within a day had come to an agreement. So we were funding through some grants and some local partnerships. We were funding all the master planning and design, and so the agreement was we'll fund the design for Byrne Park and you crowdfund it. And that's exactly what happened, and you crowdfund it. And that's exactly what happened. And so as we're working through all the community engagement processes and working through the master planning and the trail master plans and going through the RFQs and identifying all these firms, he's in the background, crowdfunding basically the entirety of Byrne Park.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2: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 that justification to pay or to use tax dollars to fund something like Byrne Park when we're looking at $20, $30, $40 million worth of facility damage just in Canton alone. So to have him be able to incubate that first phase of the project was just. It's one of the primary reasons that Chestnut exists today, and so he was such a pleasure to work with and such an amazing process to go through. I'll never forget.
Speaker 2:As a planner, I'm more sensitive to some of these things, but in the typical planning process, you know, you do a lot of public input. You want your people to give input and talk about what they want, but it's pretty rare, and so the numbers are normally pretty low. For your normal public input survey, we'd be lucky to have, you know, 50, 100 survey responses. We had 4,000 people respond to the public survey process for Byrne Park and Chestnut Mountain and I think that's just reflective of A you know the need and desire for that in our region, but then also just the, the sort of the, the spread and influence that that Seth has um in the mountain bike community.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's huge, and I have to ask too as a follow-up so, of those 4,000 or so respondents, how many of those were people that were sort of in Canton?
Speaker 2:Um, I would say in our region it's probably 50, 50, but you know we had people chiming 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 has potentially has some global implications and helped us understand. You know there are going to be people that are going to want to travel here and we can get into later sort of the economics of it. But that place-based economic development, especially in the mountains, with the amenities that we have, it's huge and so starting to leverage those opportunities is critical, especially considering everything that's going on for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So for people that aren't familiar, when we talk about Chestnut Mountain, we talk about it's multi-use. So we have not just mountain bikers that are out there, but there's hikers too. We have not just mountain bikers that are out there, but there's hikers too. The park itself I wonder if you could sort of break down, give us sort of this mental image of what this bike park is. The access road's up, the trail's coming down, and it really sounds like it's something for everybody. It's not just your most rad person out there just trying to send it to the next level. This is somebody who's just getting into this as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. The larger park is the 450-acre park, is Chestnut Mountain, so that's the nature park and that includes all the hiking-only trails, all the single-direction mountain biking traditional kind of downhill trails. That includes Berm Park, which is sort of a mini bike park within Chestnut Mountain. The way it's set up is that there's a primary climbing trail. It's wide enough for families to take jogging strollers up. It's wide enough for accommodate adaptive cycles. It is very much just a multi-use single direction in areas where sort of user conflict would be a problem with a mountain biker going down and hikers going up. And it's a spine trail. So it starts at the bottom, at the parking lot right off 1923. And if you take that you'll take it all the way to the top of the mountain. So there's about 1100 foot elevation difference between top and bottom. So good, good elevation, good topo for for mountain bike trails and things like that. So you've got you basically have a three quarter mile pedal or push or walk or hike. That gets you up to berm park, gets you up to that plateau where that NASCAR training ring was going to be. When you're up there you can start to visualize it because you can see these areas that were clear cut and now have sort of these low jack pines growing. But berm park then is basically like I said, it's a mini bike park, so they would call it a stacked loop system. So you've got trails that are a quarter to maybe half mile at the most and basically varying difficulties, from a strider bike loop with no elevation loss and some skinnies and little features for kids that are on, you know, basically balance bikes to start out on All the way up to a double black trail that has a telephone pole just wedged in the ground and you know 20 plus foot jumps and big gaps and drops and all kinds of stuff. So you know kind of everything for everybody.
Speaker 2:And I jokingly say I've got an eight and 11 year old and obviously they were, you know, four and five and seven and eight when we were starting this thing, but I kind of just built it selfishly for them, because trying to teach kids how to mountain bike in Western North Carolina 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 one of the areas that makes Chestnut so special, because that same mentality goes towards the greater trail network as well. So there's, you know, greens, green mountain bike trails that are just, you know, flow trails that are easy and you know, safe and have long sight lines. You know, all the way to double black stuff off the top, wow, 50% of it's still above my pay grade, wow. So again, just having that progression built in, so it's about 18 miles total of trail. There are more mountain bike trails than hiking trails, but as far as distance goes, it's split almost in half, wow.
Speaker 2:So there's opportunities for to hike and bike together, but there's lots of opportunities to separate those users, and that's something that we see in DuPont, we see it in Bank Creek. Like user conflict is a real thing, and so one of the beauties of designing a park from scratch is you get to try to sort of accommodate those type of issues before they even exist, and you can see it when you're at the park. Try to sort of accommodate those type of issues before they even exist, and you can see it when you're at the park. Like, just interactions that you have with hikers and other bikers are very positive, just because I think people feel like everyone has a place there and feels comfortable.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so good, wow, well, and with 2,000 people, 4,000 people all across the world that were chiming in on this to support it, and then 2,000 of those being just with Canton alone, I mean, imagine this mountain bike community, the hiking community, everybody have just really embraced it. So a moment ago you talked about the economic impact, and I'd love to kind of tap into that just a tiny bit, or actually more than a tiny bit. But before we do, you had this thinking just wasn't, it just didn't happen by chance. I mean, you had I think it was Equinox was kind of a part of the planning for this, and then you had some really experienced trail builders that also helped bridge the design into something that was reality too.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I'm so thankful we had incredible partners, and that's a reoccurring theme, I think, just as part of the Canton story beyond just Chestnut Mountain in general, is there's no way that our small community would be able to make it through all this without being able to leverage those amazing partnerships and relationships, whether that's our legislators or philanthropic organizations like Dogwood, or conservation entities like SHC, our county partners.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's just been, it's been a huge collaboration, and so working with Equinox was absolutely incredible, and that was one of the things that we knew from the very beginning. Because of the relationship with the conservancy and because of the conservation easements A lot of the property was funded through land and water fund dollars we knew that we were going to have to be very careful and deliberate and cognizant of sort of those implications and impacts, and so, having a firm like Equinox who is in the business of doing these sort of master plans and master conservation plans or recreation plans, I think their experience level was comforting for SHC and subsequently for us, and so they did an incredible job of helping us navigate all that and vision what could be possible on the site, so that they handled the master trail or, excuse me, the master plan and then elevated trail design was who did our master trail plan and then who has built all the trails on the mountain up to date?
Speaker 2:And elevated trail design again unbelievable to work with. Peter Mills is the owner and the guys that work for him and the Calibor work that they do is pretty unparalleled. You know, sort of level of communication and even just the activation of these projects as we have brought new trails online, you know brought advocacy groups out for days and we're continuing to work on sort of creating kind of that local support group, the Friends of Chestnut Mountain or whatever that looks like. I think 2024 will be the year when we try to start to initiate that. But we've got Elevated is on contract even as of now to do trail maintenance there. So they're there six to seven days a month with many excavators and just keeping everything sort of in tip top shape.
Speaker 2:So can't, cannot speak highly enough of them and the caliber of their work. And you you mean you don't have to ride there very long to realize that the stuff they're doing is just kind of next level and so it's exciting to see that come, come to Western North Carolina. They've built amazing stuff all over, really all over the world but all over the country. So to see them get to execute at 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 years has been a huge joy for me, I bet.
Speaker 1:And for your whole family it sounds like, and the whole family, yeah, I mean, and for 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 do you see it doing? And just really, what is the overall impact the town of Canton, to the community of Canton and to this whole region economically?
Speaker 2: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 of stats when we talk about outdoor recreation, but outdoor rec outpaces financial, valued at $3.5 billion a year. You know, I know that there was a study done on the economic impact of biking and climbing and maybe paddling in Pisgah and Anahala and that study needs to be redone. But I mean, I think the regional impact was, you know, $8 to $11 million a year or something like that, just for those activities within a very defined area. So I think, from the beginning, you know, we knew that the messaging and that's just the way it is, I think, with any of these projects is that you're, you know, your messaging can change for different audiences, right? Like some people are going to care more about quality of life, some people are going to care more about the economic impact, and so we have to make sure that we'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 getting to build a brand new park from scratch you know, starting in 2020, 2021, is just that we get to look at what other places have done and learn from those. So one of the things that we said was we want to measure sort of economic impact from the very beginning. We don't want chestnut to become this really valuable popular thing and then, 10 years from now, we're like we should do an economic impact study.
Speaker 2:So we've had trail counters on the ground, kind of within the first two or three months of having the park open, and that's been really cool to be able to see as we add, you know, each trail, each piece, each amenity in the park.
Speaker 2:You know we can actually see this. You know, basically we can measure sort of the impact of each of those. And then at the same time, we've got sort of a community input study that you can do only if you're at the park. So we've got QR codes on yard signs kind of throughout the park basically, and so we've got trail counters and then we've got a user input study. And what we're doing now is we're taking that data and we're mirroring it and we're quantifying. You know what's the economic impact of Chestnut Mountain, and so we don't have any kind of firm numbers on there, including lodging, but right now we're seeing, you know, 50 to 60 unique users there every day and people are spending a significant amount of money. So I think we're comfortable sort of saying right now that, excluding lodging, people are spending three or four million million in Canton and in Haywood County after they visit Chestnut Mountain, and that's excluding the lodging portion of it. So the impact is significant.
Speaker 1:That is significant, so 50 to 60 unique users a day.
Speaker 2: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 novelty thing, whereas now, you know, we've got 18 miles of trails, we've got a couple more things to build out there as far as picnic pavilions, and we're doing a kid's bicycle playground at the bottom, but all the trail mileage and everything else is done. You know, we completed the last trail, I believe in November of 2023. And so we're. You know those numbers are going to only you know, increase.
Speaker 1:That is really incredible, nick. So if I have if I'm looking at the statistics right 50 to 60 unique people, so that's on a Monday, yet 50. Now if that same person comes back on a Thursday, are they counted in part of this unique?
Speaker 2:No, they're not. Yeah, that's what makes us even more incredible, I mean exponentially, that's.
Speaker 1:that is enormous, it's big. I mean. That is far beyond what I even thought of even coming into this interview to be honest with you.
Speaker 2:And then you start to think about how you extrapolate that out to the food, the lodging, the bike shops, the all the other stuff, the brewery trips, the breweries, everything you know, and I think that's one of the things that is helping. You know, as we you know we had that obviously the mill closure and we can we viewed sort of a lot of our retail downtown locations. Is potentially some of the canaries in the mine right, like they're going to be the ones you know you've got a thousand people less working a quarter mile from our you know mom and pop burger shop. What does that look like? What is it? What are the implications of that? And so I think having things like Chestnut, having people coming into town and visiting and patronizing those things, has sort of softened that blow a little bit. So exciting to see that continue to grow.
Speaker 1:Chestnut Mountain is a phenomenal facility. Obviously, we can see the economic impact that it's bringing in, but there's so much more around us and around you in there in Canton. Before we go there, though, the residents, the people because you're living amongst them, you're working amongst them, eating amongst them, recreating Are they seeing the economic impact of this? Like, do they really feel it? I mean, they probably notice there's more activity, but do they get a sense that there is economic benefit here?
Speaker 2:I would say yes, but I think you know at this point in time, for most people it is anecdotal.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:You know we've got our local brewery owners told us you know they've got a couple locations in Haywood County and the Maggie Valley location and the Canton location. Maggie Valley always outperformed Canton, kind of two to one, and then the weekend that Chestnut Mountain opened it sort of went one to one and has leveled off there since. So you see a lot of cars with bike racks, you know, and in parking lots and at restaurants around town. But I think we're excited to really be able to quantify this data, to start to say that you know and then start to inform our community about what's going on.
Speaker 1:I bet I mean that's the land planner in you, that's the planner.
Speaker 1:I mean you're not a free spirit kind of. I mean I'm sure you are when you're writing, but I mean you just come across as a very thoughtful, 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 could just talk about that one brewery as just a micro example.
Speaker 2:Two to one, one to one now holding off and however many people go to Catalucci and are probably right by there, I mean it's not just the skiing, but for four, or leverage that opportunity and open up, you know, amenities and shops and things like that that can. They can cater to that. So it's an exciting thing to watch. Oh, that's great.
Speaker 1:All right. So let's a little bit of a hard pivot, but it's all connected. You have a new role, that's right.
Speaker 2:Right Ever since last Thursday and let's set up your new role. And then I got a bunch of so excited to be transitioning into that, as you know sort of future financial implications, climate change implications. It's a huge opportunity and something that I'm really excited about and something that I think plays to my strengths but helps us, as a town, make sure that we are excelling in all areas.
Speaker 1: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 if quickly is the right word, but just it's interesting how the river is sort of healing itself the Pigeon River is sort of running right through you and how much it's cleaning up. That's just a small example.
Speaker 2:I love to give. The Wildlife Resource Commission did a study. I think it was either, and I won't get all of it exactly right, but it was. I believe it was 45 days before the mill closed. They did a study. Basically, they were looking at aquatic life. 45 days before the mill closed they did that same study, I think within 15 days of the closure, and there was like 15x the aquatic life, or something like that, already in the river.
Speaker 2:So the river is resilient and I believe you know the river is a huge part of Canton's future. Having the opportunity to take a step back and look at you know what are our priorities, what do we want to do for the future? How do we feel about all these natural amenities? You know Canton, I think, for so long was a manufacturing town and that's all that was necessary. You know the payroll for the plant itself was $100 million a year. They bought $250 plus million worth of wood chips from our region and so all of a sudden you remove that sort of from the equation. It creates quite a void. So I'm very thankful that we have amenities like the Pigeon, like the Blue Ridge Parkway I mean if you look at Black Balsam, skinny Dip Falls, graveyard Fields, a lot of Shining Rock, wilderness, east and West Fork of the Pigeon River those are all technically Canton and that's something that we're not leveraging at this point in time at all and taking advantage of or protecting, and so there's a huge opportunity there.
Speaker 2:It would be a very different story if Canton was, you know, in the middle of eastern North Carolina and had no natural amenities and no urbanized area, no tourism. You know, this conversation might look a lot different if we were in that boat. Again, future is bright. I mean, canton is a staggeringly beautiful place. Haywood County is incredible. Yeah, in a lot of ways it is off the radar at this point in time. It's the highest mean elevation county east of the Mississippi, so we have big mountains, we've got big watersheds. I mean it's a special place. So I think you know we want to make sure that we're providing opportunities for people to enjoy that. You know, locals and potentially visitors alike.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean a special place with a really special people. Yes, that is special place with a really special people. Yes, that is something that has always resonated with me we were talking earlier about. We've only lived here for about 13 and a half years, but a lot of our early connection with that area was through sports, and so we could just see just the community that was there and the people that came together and it was beyond just we're going to go support our local high school team or middle school team or whatever. I've never been to a place ever in Western North Carolina that I've seen a basketball gym packed out for a women or girls basketball game at four o'clock in the afternoon. I mean, it's just a small example, I know, but it's just the heart of the people and just how much this is home for them. I mean it's their whole lives just surrounded by this place.
Speaker 2:It's a really special place, I think. You know, coming from, obviously coming from the outside in, it's taken me a long time to sort of wrap my head around. You know all the, all the shared history and sort of the sense of community that is Canton, and that is something that we will not lose. You know, that's our line in the sand. You really can't recreate that authenticity. And so making sure that our, that community is protected and making sure that that culture stays the same is a huge part and a huge priority for us. But it's also a huge responsibility.
Speaker 2:You know we are looking at what is Canton 2.0 at this point in time and we want to make sure that we get it right and we sort of have one opportunity to do that. You know, making sure that we're not losing what makes Canton special is something that we, our board, you know, talks about constantly. We will have to continue to work on and you know, ask me in two years what that looks like and maybe I can tell you. But in a lot of ways that gentrification bubble is getting sort of removed from Canton. You remove the paper mill and you know the nuisance and the smell and all those things and we have a relatively short amount of time to sort of master plan and make sure that we're in the right position and doing the right things to sort of navigate all the complexities that come with what's next for?
Speaker 1:the town. So before we move away from the town and the people, like the actual physical infrastructure of the town, it has to be one of the most beautiful little communities in western North Carolina. It reminds me a lot of things like going up into West Virginia towards Snowshoe to go skiing, or Stanton or Virginia or places like that. It just has a really true mountain feel, the architecture, the history, like you said, 115-year-old plant, so obviously you're going to have history there, historical places, but you don't see a lot of closed down places. I mean there's a lot of businesses in every storefront it seems, and they seem to be changing and growing too. That's right.
Speaker 2:That's huge kudos to our board and some of the previous boards. I think in the early 2000s occupancy was at like 10% downtown, so we've seen that really grow and they've worked hard to sort of grow that back from what it was. But I mean it's always been a vibrant community and, you're right, it is naturally a very beautiful place. I think one of the things that I like to point out is you know, asheville is in a very large river valley and so in order for if you're in you know the city of Asheville, in order for you to get to sort of any mountains, any hiking trails, anything like that, you know you're having to go a decent distance where, as in Canton, I mean it is truly a mountain town. I mean you know there are multiple sort of you know a thousand plus foot elevation mountains, you know all around, and so I think it's, yeah, it's a special place. It feels much more of a traditional mountain town.
Speaker 1:So let's talk a little bit about some of the businesses that are around there. So we have breweries you mentioned those Then you have some cool restaurants. What are just some of the highlight places? And I know that kind of puts you on the spot as a town manager because you don't want to leave somebody out.
Speaker 2:No, no, we've got great. We have, yeah, we've got amazing restaurants Grateful Table, we have a coffee shop that I'd put against any third wave one in Western North Carolina, paper Town, and, yeah, we mentioned the brewery Bear Waters, obviously, but we've got awesome retail. Again, it's one of those things where we've got this amazing downtown building stock, because the mill existed and so we have all these historic buildings that have been renovated shameless plug. There's still some available. So if anyone is wanting to come open a bike shop or open up an interesting shop in Canton, see, let me know. Yeah, because it probably won't be there long, because it probably won't be there very long.
Speaker 1:When you think of the mill area, like the physical area where the mill, and then you think about expanding, let's start kind of in that area and then let's kind of go out and sort of spread our wings a little bit. I'd love to talk about Pisgah View State Park, if that's even something that we want to talk about today too.
Speaker 2: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 of impacts to what happens on that site. So we're continuing to negotiate with Pact of Evergreen, which is the operator who announced the closure back in 2023. But that mill site ends up being a silver bullet in a lot of ways. So obviously there are major sort of flood implications of having that level of sort of structures and things in the regulatory floodway and in the 100-year floodway. So the implications for future flooding events, our ability to sort of lower that base flood elevation level in a hurricane or in a tropical storm by removing some of the barriers to flow and things like that on the mill site.
Speaker 2:So when we look at the mill site we think about sort of the flood recovery mitigation perspective. The existing wastewater treatment plant. Think about sort of the flood recovery mitigation perspective. The existing wastewater treatment plant that treats all of the town's waste is on the mill site itself. We will be relocating and building a new facility but we'll have to operate that one for six to seven years and then I think we view, sort of a broad array of diverse opportunities on the mill site.
Speaker 2:So, whether that is clean manufacturing, whether that's commercial or mixed use, I think there's a possibility or a potential for an extension of sort of our downtown and to be able to have, you know, additional sort of breweries and hotels, and I think there's opportunities to redevelop that site into many things. Again, going back to that 100-year-old history, there's plenty of structures that are sort of their purposes, won't be utilized and would be justified in sort of a selective demolition is the term that we're using. But, mike, there are unbelievable structures and buildings that can be reused in various creative ways to do some pretty incredible things that again really lend themselves to that authenticity and sort of that history. And I think that's one of the things that you know. We want to make sure that there are opportunities to make things on this site.
Speaker 2:That's a huge point of community pride and the manufacturing part the manufacturing part is the history, and so if we're able to do that without negatively impacting our natural amenities which we know we are you know that's going to be a huge part and that's something that our community cares greatly about.
Speaker 1:I don't know. But I know that you engage the community, asking them their input, getting the input. That's all part of the planning. But are you getting anything just sort of ancillary from the people who live there about what they would love to see this place revitalized as?
Speaker 2:We're just over a year from the announcement and we're about 10 months basically 10 months post the plant physically shutting down, and so I think there's still a lot of questions in there for our community.
Speaker 2:I think that you know it was pretty clear early on that sort of the air quality and water quality improvements were very much appreciated and I don't know that we could probably go back to that. You know sort of how things were done previously, but I think as we know more about the mill site, we'll be able to open up that community engagement process a lot more. So we've done no master planning, no sort of site-wide comprehensive assessments or anything like that yet, just because we're so fresh in the process. But we're excited to sort of be able to navigate that and work through, and obviously there'll be a huge amount of community input required in order to be able to move forward with kind of any new, new development or reuse or anything like that. But again, maybe ask me in two years and I can tell you actually I look forward to asking you that I mean you know cause.
Speaker 1:I mean, just like the old fort story, I feel like that's still being written and it's such a great one, and I think that not to weigh one over the other, but there's so many more things I think that you have the ability to do. Just just from a, you know just kind of where that town is and how large the town is.
Speaker 2:That's true, and I think what we learn too and what we do and same with Old Fort and it's I mean we were we're looking all over for sort of the precedents and case studies. But you know, to have a manufacturer close in, you know, appalachia or small town, america is not a new thing. But what you do, what we do with that, in 2024 may look a little bit different. And so for us to be able to hopefully model and set the precedent about what's possible for communities like ours, who are going through this transition, I think is important too, and that's something that you know. We want to make sure that we're documenting and and providing to to other places, because it's it's it's not easy.
Speaker 2:And it it is, you know, continues to be a very complex and sometimes overwhelming process, and so I think trying to glean and learn as much as we can and share that with other people is going to be is our sort of diligence.
Speaker 1:That's great, all right. So the day in the life of Nick over the next couple of months quarters, what does that look like for you? Where would the emphasis and the focus be, and how will you sort of channel your efforts now, nick?
Speaker 2:So I think we're about two years into flood recovery, so we've got probably I've mentioned it before, but we've got 20 or $30 million worth of projects that are going to be going out to bid and basically being constructed. We lost our town hall, police department, fire department, colonial theater, historic armory, event center, dog park, you name it basically, and so all those are going to be coming online in the next year and so I'll be managing a lot of construction projects. We're working right now with a number of different groups, but one of them is Coastal Dynamics Design Labs. They're out at NC State. They've done incredible work in Eastern North Carolina helping communities become more resilient to sort of climate change and flooding impacts. So that's the resiliency side of my job. Title is helping Canton sort of navigate and make sure that when you know the next flood comes because, as I mentioned before, you know we talked about Fred like it was a hundred year, but the data is telling us it's the 25 to 50 year now. So we know this is going to happen again and there's ways that we can be resilient, there's ways to mitigate a lot of that. You know flooding impacts and so it will be. You know equal parts, sort of helping us rebuild from what happened before. But every one of those projects has mitigation and resiliency built in. So if there's a structure that has to remain in the floodplain, you know it now has deployable flood walls and now has all its utilities elevated. So that's, you know that's a job in itself, is sort of navigating and helping sort of you know the Canton as a municipality be able to be more resilient. And in our town in general we're working with various small businesses around town to go after opportunities to either elevate, to flood proof, to make sure that you know both public and private partners are sort of protected. And you know so that we're considering that mitigation and resiliency side.
Speaker 2:And then the mill recovery, so negotiating kind of all the site details and implications and then working basically to you know demo and scrap and remediate. You know it's a 115-year-old industrial site so there's lots of work to be done to get it clean. A clean bill of health is kind of what we say. That's the end goal is to have something that then can be turned over to the private sector and you know we can see these. You know craft breweries and outdoor gear manufacturers and advanced clean. You know manufacturing and all those kinds of things. So working through site negotiations, working through sort of critical infrastructure and then the economic development side.
Speaker 2:So finishing, finishing out Chestnut Mountain. We've got a couple more projects to implement, grant funded projects, but we should be pretty much fully done by August. So the kids bicycle playground will 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 least have some of those amenities open.
Speaker 2:You know, no matter what, yeah, and then kind of, what's next? We talked about a little bit before but we'll be doing a Pigeon River Corridor study. So, looking at, you know, what improvements need to be made to the pigeon and how do we improve access, how do we leverage and protect that opportunity? You know what impediments are there to utilizing the pigeon Right now. There's a low head dam in the middle of the mill site, in the middle of the river basically. So even if access was allowed through there, right now it's not physically possible. So there's, you know, there's physical things, there's planning things that need to be done.
Speaker 2:But I think, yeah, it's sort of figuring out what. What's the next chestnut mountain, right? Yeah, I think it's the pigeon river, I think it's access, I think it's wayfinding. I think there's a lot of low hanging fruit that we don't necessarily need to reinvent the wheel, but we need to start sort of capturing. You know, our proximity to the parkway, to Shining Rock, to the East and West Fork, to the Black Balsams Like that just needs to be our bread and butter. I mean, it already exists. So kind of you know, making people understand that better is going to be part of it, and then providing sort of the necessary access is going to be huge. So yeah, so I think it'll be a busy few years.
Speaker 1:To say the least. Right, yeah, how do you approach it from a planner standpoint? When you talk about the Pigeon River, you talk about some of the areas that aren't necessarily accessible now and then creating some access. What is that like? Navigating through, because not everyone's going to be completely on board, and I know that you know that better than not everyone's going to be completely on board, and and I know that you know that better than anybody and you have to be sensitive to it.
Speaker 1:But there's also the element of an economic driver, not to just say money, money, money, but there's ways that the town can be, continue to be resilient for the next 25, 50, 100 years, you know, based on what income is there, because we've seen evidences of places that don't do that and then they become just remnants and ghost towns, and we certainly don't want that. And I mean, there's entire generations of families that are from that area. So, but I'm always curious you know just what it's like for somebody who may not have the same heart. You know that you do that I do and how you handle and balance that, because that's an important part of the equation too, I would imagine.
Speaker 2:You know, as we are able to. You know, getting that sort of critical community input and making sure that the people that you want to hear from and that we need to hear from are have a voice in that process, you know, is kind of the only way that we're going to be successful at these things. But you're absolutely right, it's a mix. Right Like you're, you want to make sure that sort of what we're proposing and what we move forward with in a, you know, in a Canton 2.0, is reflective of our community and that probably looks different than it does in Brevard or Black Mountain or, you know, some of these other Asheville, even, some of these traditional tourist towns, and we want to make sure that we're honoring that and protecting that. So I think all that you know sort of bakes out in that sort of master planning community input.
Speaker 2:So the only thing I'd add to it, I think, is that so the one, you know we talked earlier just about how all the amazing partnerships that we've had and sort of seeing that level of support at the state and federal level throughout sort of flood recovery and mill recovery, you know Commerce has given us almost a million dollars to master plan sort of every aspect of Canton.
Speaker 2:So from the site master plan, master recreation plan, you know, basically infrastructure, capital improvement plans, like we need to look at every aspect of Canton in a post-mill world because it all has to be recalibrated. I mean everything from our highway network, transportation networks, you know are oversized, like we were accommodating so much freight coming through for the mill itself that we need to look at our you know sort of road networks. We need to look at you know kind of all the different areas at all. You know kind of all the all the different areas. Um, and we want to make sure that we're sort of you know, incorporating all that into sort of a central vision for what. What's next for the town?
Speaker 1:Wow, so you've got an entire career built just in one little town. That's right, I mean it just they could go on and on. Yeah, Nick, what have I not asked you? What is important, that you would love for listeners to understand about what it is that you're doing? The impact of Chestnut Mountain, Canton.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say. I mean, one of the things that we didn't dive into too much but it's something that we're, I think, I feel really strongly about is the future of sort of outdoor rec.
Speaker 2:So much of that is going to be in municipalities taking the mantle up, because one of the things that we saw, you know, when we did Chestnut Mountain was, you know, through our relationships with the conservancy and through granting agencies, you know, we didn't pay a dime for that property and we were actually able to use the donation value for the property itself for both the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund grant as well as the recreational trails program. Those are pretty much the two primary funding mechanisms that funded all the trails there, all the amenities, you know parking lots, pavilions, all the above, and so that was, you know, at very little cost to the town. The beauty of that is that we can do whatever we want on that mountain and you know we're used to sort of the. Our traditional trail networks are in the national forest and they are very restricted in what can be done and sort of the opportunity for public-private partnerships, I think is something that doing it at the municipal level is really beneficial for.
Speaker 2:You know, byrne Park was funded. A huge portion of Berm Park was funded through private companies like Backcountrycom, like Park Tool. That's not something that can be done in the National Forest West. You see these bike companies, manufacturing companies, sponsor trails, sponsor trail maintenance, you know, pay for new trails pay for new access and that's not something that you know is allowed within the national forest. So if our local advocacy group, piscisorba, wants to set up a trail, like a volunteer day at Bank Creek, they can't set a tent up and try to solicit, you know, new members while they're there.
Speaker 2:I did not know that they can pretty much do anything they want at Chestnut, obviously within our management plan and within reason as far as our conservation easements go, but there's so much more flexibility, and for a town to be able to budget for a you know, a waterline break could cost me the same thing that randomly happens in one day. You know, the ROI on that's so high too. It's just so. I think that's something that I would like to see a lot more of is seeing our cities and towns start to take that mantle up, because I think there's significant opportunities there. Yeah, well said.
Speaker 1:Well said so that's something.
Speaker 2:And then I've been just so blown away with Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy and so I would encourage anybody who, you know, cares about our mountains and our rivers to support them and look into them. But they were incredible partners to work with. That's so great to hear. Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 1:Good, good, yeah. Well, I know you have work to do Now you have transitioning work to do. That's right, leaving the other one and going to the new one, but I can't thank you enough for coming in sharing a little bit of your story, but also just what you bring to the table, too, in terms of, yeah, happy to be here and appreciate the opportunity to wrap Canton and everything going on Absolutely, and I love the fact that I'm usually the one bringing out at some point in the conversation about we'd love to have you back and see how this thing is going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we've already kind of maybe set the date for a couple of years down the road to see where we are Two years, two years, 26.
Speaker 2:We're going to do it. No joke, sounds good, all right.
Speaker 1:Appreciate you, brother, thanks, man. From its industrial roots to the vibrant tapestry of Chestnut Mountain Nature Park and beyond, canton stands as a testament to the power of community collaboration and forward-thinking leadership. I hope you enjoyed this journey to discover Canton's transformation. It's only just beginning and I am stoked to see how it's going to unfold. I'd like to give a special shout out to Made by Mountains, who made this episode possible.
Speaker 1:This episode is part of our Made by Mountains series, where we're diving deeper into the lives of people who call these mountains home and how these mountains have made them. So I hope you enjoyed this episode and, if you did, please consider leaving us a review. It truly does help us reach more people, and if you know someone who also might enjoy the podcast, be sure to share this episode with them too. Be sure to subscribe to Exploration Local so you'll be one of the first to know when new episodes drop. Join me on Instagram and Facebook and drop me a note at mike at explorationlocalcom if you ever havea suggestion for a future episode or if you just want to say hello. Until next time. Remember that the future is not just written. It's shaped by the collective efforts of those who dare to dream and strive for change. And, of course, I always encourage you to wander far, but explore local. Thank you.