Former Beacon Blanket factory site to be revitalized with bike park, more
The site of the former Beacon Blanket factory will soon see major changes with a bike park and more planned for the site.
According to a news release announcing the plans, the new development will be called Beacon Village. Casey Watkins, Meredith Ellison and Brandon Ellison are all co-founders of Beacon Village as well as the Quility, a Swannanoa-based insurtech company.
Watkins, whose grandparents worked at the Beacon factory, was born and raised in Swannanoa, while the Ellisons moved to the area in 2001.
Watkins told Black Mountain News that they all have been working in financial services for two decades and have been working on their other business, Symmetry Financial Group for the past 15 years. They founded Quility in 2020. The business partners are also the former owners of Native Kitchen.
Watkins said they purchased the Beacon factory land in 2019 with the intention of building an office headquarters for their companies.
“Then COVID happened and no one wants to work out of an office anymore, so that 40 acres became a blank canvas, and our vision was to do something for the community to really revitalize it and bring it back,” Watkins said. “We started thinking about what are the needs of the community and we want to create a place where people can come and enjoy nature and have fun, build connections.”
Beacon Manufacturing Company moved from Massachusetts to Swannanoa in 1924. Charles D. Owen owned the mill and built the first employee village in 1925. The mill and village continued to grow into the 1960s. By 2002, the mill closed due to financial troubles. The factory was destroyed in a fire by an arsonist in 2003 and has sat abandoned since then.
The first phase of the Beacon Village project will take place this spring, with expected completion by the end of summer. The plan is to create a 4.7 acre bike park and perimeter walking trail, along with an event lawn.
The bike park will be a Velosolutions bike park that is for “riders of all abilities,” according to the news release. Watkins said the bike park will be “accessible to anything on wheels,” from mountain and jump bikes to scooters, roller skates, skateboards and even adaptive wheelchairs. He said the goal with the bike park, walking trail and event lawn is to create a space where people can gather in nature together. He called this “the foundational component of our community.”
According to the news release, the estimate cost of the first phase of Beacon Village is $4.5 million.
Meredith Ellison said while there is nothing “nailed down” for future phases of the project, they are currently talking to potential partners on utilizing the remaining space.
“What we’re hoping to do is to really build a Beacon Village where people can live here, work here, play here, shop here, dine here,” Meredith Ellison said. “But no specifics past that Phase 1.”
Meredith Ellison said she and the other co-founders are looking to “do this development a little differently” than developments have traditionally been done in the past. She said they are hoping to “re-engineer and reimagine” the process.
“Really kind of starting with where a lot of developments and really starting with play, starting with thinking about the land, starting with beauty, starting with nature and then seeing how it grows from there,” Meredith Ellison said. “We’re excited about being part of the shift that we’d like to see happen really all over and, at the end of the day, just a place Swannanoa can be really proud of and feel good about.”
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Karrigan Monk is the Swannanoa Valley communities reporter for Black Mountain News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at kmonk@blackmountainnews.com.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Former Beacon Blanket factory site to be revitalized with bike park
