From Daily Planet Staff Reports

As a crowd protested outside, developer Stewart Coleman told Asheville City Council on July 15 that he would move his controversial condominium complex even closer to City Hall if he were denied permission for a road on public parkland.

The change would be unavoidable, Coleman said, and would have the project blocking some views of the 1928 Art Deco City Hall.

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Cecil Bothwell, one of the speakers at an anti-Parkside Condo rally, urges the crowd to keep up the fight to preserve City-County Plaza park and the view of City Hall — and the more-than-century-old magnolia tree under which he spoke. Daily Planet Staff Photo

However, a city planner questioned whether that would happen.

Coleman cast gloom on the possibility of a land-swap deal on July 14, when he noted that he has spent millions of dollars so far on the project and any deal could prove expensive. He hopes to begin demolition in November.

Meanwhile, outside in City-County Plaza park in the cool shade of the large magnolia tree that would be cut down for the condos, between 200 and 300 people staged a peaceful protest, which included some passionate speeches — against the project.

Much of the opposition centered on the propriety of the sale of public land by the Buncombe County Board of Commissioners, the condos’ height and design, whether the building would overshadow City Hall and City-County Plaza and the future of the magnolia tree in the building’s path.

Coleman’s nine-story project was revised from its original plan to keep it under 100,000 square feet, thereby enabling him to avoid having to seek council’s approval.

However, he does need the city’s and county’s approval to add features including a frontage road on the park and windows on the east side.

Without the road, Coleman said he would have use Marjorie Street to the south for fire truck access and move his building toward the northern edge of his property line, blocking some views of the City Hall.

Coleman told council, “We have only one option if this street is not approved and this is to use Marjorie Street as the staging fire apparatus platform. In order to make this street, which is only 14 feet wide, qualify, we are forced to move our building on our property 15 feet towards the north. That has a tremendous effect on the view corridor.”

Council — excluding Brownie Newman, who was absent — was not scheduled to vote on the issue, but went into closed session for more than 30 minutes. The private session was intended to allow discussions of a lawsuit that descendants of parkland donor George Pack have brought against the county for selling the land to Coleman and a possible deal involving land to the south of Parkside.

Upon council’s return to open session, Mayor Terry Bellamy restated the city’s position that the county reacquire the parkland. She added that the city was still open to other ways to stop or alter the project, including letting Coleman build on other city land, for which the county has said it help compensate the city.

“If there are other alternatives that include a land swap that we feel we can get behind ... we want to be open to that,” Bellamy said. “But we feel the county should be a significant driver.”

The earliest the city would decide on the road would likely be August, city planning officials said.

Coleman would also have to get approval from the county commissioners.

Without the road, Coleman still could fit fire trucks to the south if he moved up his building just five feet, city officials said, noting that that would have less effect on the view of City Hall. Coleman said the road was part of the original plan for Pack Square Park, now under construction.

Opponents want the county or city to seize the land and pay Coleman market value or stop the project in some other way.