Mountain Xpress: New Asheville riverside venue will include 2,500-seat music venue, restaurant, more

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Mountain Xpress reporter Jake Frankel confirms what I first reported here on Aug. 20 – that the new Salvage Station venue on Riverside Drive is going to to be a major new player on Asheville’s entertainment scene.

From Xpress on Salvage Station:

Over the next year, a seven-acre patch of land along the French Broad River in Asheville will be transformed into a major new entertainment, recreation, food and beer hub.

Plans call for a 2,500-person capacity outdoor music venue, a smaller indoor music hall and bar, and a “soul-Americana” restaurant. The sprawling grounds at 665 Riverside Drive will also feature three different river access points and an array of outdoor leisure sport opportunities. Developers are including a parking lot that can handle 400 to 450 cars.

The music venue and special event portion of the property, called the Salvage Station, will hold a soft opening Saturday, Sept. 20, hosting the official Zombie Float after-party, a benefit for the Western North Carolina Alliance. Although a permanent stage isn’t scheduled to be completed until next spring, Salvage Station will likely host a few more “big public events” through the end of the year using temporary staging, says McClinton. When complete, the outdoor venue will include a series of platforms and benches to “amphitheater it out,” he says.

Construction will start in December, with everything scheduled for completion by April 2015. No disrespect here, but Salvage Station is going to make Bywater look like child’s play, and the Bywater has been rocking ever since it opened in 2010.

Salvage Station is just the latest big-time development in the area. Here’s a quick look at a few other significant developments underway, and all are within about a 2- or 3-mile radius of Salvage Station:

-Smoky Park Supper Club: Asheville’s first restaurant built from shipping containers and one of the biggest shipping container restaurants in the U.S. Work is underway, but don’t know the latest on scheduled opening.

-New Belgium Brewing’s new East Coast brewery: New Belgium’s new $175 million brewery is under construction on Craven Street. They expect to be making beer there at some point in 2015.

-RAD Lofts: A new mixed-use development by developer Harry Pilos at the corner of Clingman Avenue and Roberts Street will include 209 residential units, a parking deck, a sushi restaurant, tattoo parlour, restaurant and more. Construction has not started yet.

7 Comments

David September 6, 2014 - 9:45 am

Are the 2500 people attending a concert going to carpool 5 or 6 to a car?

Nate September 5, 2014 - 10:59 am

Some kind of reference points are always useful in articles like this, so we don’t have to hit up Google Maps in order to figure out the location. For anyone who is wondering, this is the property just north of the Southern States property, right where near where the ramps from Future 26 hit Riverside.

lydia September 6, 2014 - 3:38 pm

right next to southern states store where you pick up I-26

Chris Power September 4, 2014 - 3:58 pm

Looks like another exciting addition to the RAD scene!

mort September 4, 2014 - 12:01 pm

Uh…isn’t this right about where I-26 is supposed to cross the river? Eventually…?

murphy September 4, 2014 - 9:44 am

J. I thought Jimmy Rentz was planning a new place down there too… no?

Jason Sandford September 4, 2014 - 10:05 am

It’s my understanding that he’s involved, too.

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