What will replace Vance Monument? Public weighs in on Pack Square Plaza visioning project
ASHEVILLE - A multiday public engagement process kicked off Dec. 1 in an effort to guide the future of Pack Square Plaza, a small but key public space once home to a controversial confederate obelisk, which found itself central to Asheville's reckonings with racial justice.
At the heart of downtown, Pack Square Plaza is no stranger to change. Long before the deconstruction in 2021 of the 75-foot-tall granite monument known as Vance Monument, the plaza has seen numerous transformations, and been a gathering space for free speech, protest and festivals for decades.
"It's like our front lawn," said Jo Potter, an Asheville jewelry artist, of the plaza. Originally from Washington, D.C., where the National Mall is often referred to as "America's front yard," she said Pack Square Plaza serves a similar purpose for the Asheville community.
“What am I expecting to take home? I don’t know," she said of the public engagement sessions, but the message of greater inclusivity, and a local focus, were an encouraging start.
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While running her business, Mtn Folk Lore, Potter said she has sold her jewelry at the plaza five times this year.
In it for the long haul, she had plans to attend all the public engagement efforts this week and was settled into a chair in Pack Memorial Library's basement auditorium, taking notes as the meetings began.
The city, Buncombe County and McAdams Co., a Durham-based civil engineer firm, are partnering to document the community's vision for the next phase of the plaza's life. With an $111,000 contract, McAdams began its work in July.
The city is contributing $81,000 of general fund appropriations for the project, and Buncombe County allocated $30,000.
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The endeavor is further complicated by ongoing litigation that will determine the fate of Vance Monument, the base of which remains in the plaza despite the obelisk's removal.
“We have thoughts, we have ideas, but it’s not about us, it’s about you," Mitchell Silver, McAdams principal and vice president, said at a Dec. 1 focus group meeting. “This is your city, this is your space.”
Silver is a former New York City Parks commissioner, and is the project manager for the visioning process — leading community engagement and, ultimately, the development of a vision document that will guide the design, programming and management of the space.
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He was moderating a 9 a.m. meeting on prospective planning and design, the first of four focus groups on Dec. 1. Presentations, site tours and focus group meetings will continue through Dec. 3.
A draft vision plan document is anticipated to be released in February or March. After further engagement, consideration of official adoption will occur in April.
The story of the space
The project area involves not just the oblong, brick plaza, once home to Vance Monument, but also the hardscaped public space between Biltmore Avenue and Market Street downtown.
The final vision document will also suggest improvements to the "physical and mental connections to and from The Block neighborhood just next door, which has a past, present, and future inextricably linked to that of Pack Square Plaza and downtown Asheville," according to the city's public engagement hub.
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The Block is a historic business district where Black businesses once flourished until urban renewal decimated Black communities. It is still home to the YMI Cultural Center on the corner of Eagle and Market streets.
Bobbette Mays, an Asheville native and Shiloh representative on Asheville's Community Reparations Commission, remembers walking through the plaza with her father on the way to the Block.
Her dad was the kind of man who always wore a suit and hat, she said. His version of 'dressing down' meant removing the tie.
“As a little kid, holding his hand, going to the Block, (was) just so amazing,” Mays said. Back then, she didn't differentiate between Pack Square and the Block, where so much of her community thrived, "I just knew that's where we went to gather."
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Now, she said, the plaza is not an inviting space for her, and many bad memories, including what the Vance Monument stood for, honoring racist Civil War-era Gov. Zebulon Vance, made it a depressing place to visit.
"It's like it doesn't have any life," she said.
She would like to see artwork take the place of the monument, perhaps something symbolizing equity and peace, or footprints embedded in the sidewalk of the plaza, leading the way along the path she, her father and countless others would walk through the heart of downtown to the Block.
Another Asheville native, Carol Peterson, 81, said her father and uncle used to drive cattle from their farm on one side of the county to the other, across where the plaza is now. Peterson is chair of the Buncombe County's Parks, Greenways and Recreation Advisory Board.
“If you don’t know where you’ve been, you’re not going to know where you’re going," Peterson said. Of the site, she said, "it's been everything. And it’s got to continue to be everything for these generations coming up."
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She hopes a vision for the plaza will acknowledge the site's history, while also moving the narrative forward.
“At the moment, I think it’s most uninviting,” Peterson said of the plaza. Though the green sprawl of Pack Square Park is "wonderful," the neighboring plaza and subject of the visioning project, "is almost disgraceful for Asheville. It's embarrassing for me."
Silver noted that Asheville is a city that "loves to tell stories," noting countless markers, plaques and signs that pepper downtown and beyond.
“I have heard, what’s the story of the space?" Silver said. Should a space have one story, or many stories? There’s something we’re going to think about.”
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The 5 focus areas
Silver said the community's vision will address five focus areas:
Issues/ideas associated with the repurposing of the former Vance Monument area.
How equity and inclusion can be advanced at Pack Square Plaza, now and in the future.
Guidance on a future design/design process for capital improvements to Pack Square, including budgetary considerations.
Recommendations on a public private partnership to support future improvements to the area (including operations and management).
Ideas to better connect, both physically and mentally, Pack Square to the Block.
There are no capital dollars currently associated with this project.
How to get involved?
Find more schedule details, timelines and public engagement opportunities here.
Focus Group Meetings: Dec. 2, at the Asheville Municipal Building, 100 Court Plaza.
8:30-10 a.m.: Hospitality and tourism
10:15-11:45 a.m. : Downtown livability, management and partnerships
2-3:30 p.m.: Inclusive Economic Development
First Friday Pop-Up on The Block: Dec. 2, a collaboration with the Noir Collective at Pennycup at the YMI, 39 South Market St., Asheville.
5-7 p.m.: As one of the First Friday happenings, drop in for free refreshments, project information and to provide input.
Open House and Site Tours: Dec. 3 at Posana, 1 Biltmore Ave. Presentations begin at 10 a.m., 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., each followed by a site tour.
Virtual Meetings: 6-8 p.m. Dec. 12 and 14. Meeting links will be posted on ashevillenc.gov/packsquare.
Design Workshop: Jan. 13, 9 a.m.-1p.m. More details to come.
The first Dec. 1 focus group meeting had about 20 people in attendance, and Peterson said she hopes more people continue to turn out.
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“I think it’s just going to be wonderful. It’s so important that people speak out," she said of the meetings.
“Don’t stand on the sidelines and wish later that you had said what needs to be said. This is something that hopefully, if we incorporate what happens on the plaza, what happens on the city’s front porch, what happens on the Block, we will come together with that idea that’s best for the most.”
Vance Monument litigation remains unchanged
The fate of the monument is still tangled up in court despite several rulings in the city's favor, and the city is proceeding with the planning process for the plaza.
City Attorney Brad Branham said in June the city would pause any efforts to complete the monument's removal while litigation was ongoing.
More: NC Supreme Court issues Vance Monument stay order; city responds to request for appeal
After the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the city in April, the Society for the Historical Preservation of the 26th North Carolina Troops, which is challenging the city's removal of the monument, is attempting to take the issue to the N.C. Supreme Court.
On Dec. 1, Branham said there were no further updates on this appeal.
"Unfortunately we also have no timeline, so we simply continue to wait," Branham told the Citizen Times via email.
Sarah Honosky is the city government reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. News Tips? Email shonosky@citizentimes.com or message on Twitter at @slhonosky.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: How will Asheville decide the future of Pack Square Plaza?
