Revitalizing Beacon Blanket Mill to Create a Hub of Manufacturing and Community
Sep 15, 2024 08:53AM ● By Randee BrownOnce the largest blanket manufacturing facility in the world, the former site of the Beacon Blanket Mill in Swannanoa holds a revitalized vision for WNC’s community.
The 40+ acre site was purchased in 2019 by co-founders of Quility and Symmetry, Meridith Ellison, Brandon Ellison, and Casey Watkins, along with Jon Sarver, owner of Sarver Realty Group, with the intention of creating a headquarters for their businesses. As with many business owners’ plans during 2019 and 2020, COVID was a catalyst for shifting goals and missions.
Taking their time in deciding their approach to the project, Meridith Ellison and the team dove deep into purpose work and getting quiet with the land to determine exactly what they wanted their results to be. They thought about what it means to have a community, and a big component of that is having places for people to work that pay a living wage and treat their employees well. It also means having mixed-use spaces that can offer housing, recreation, and walkability in a safe space.
The partnership decided to begin the site’s revitalization by creating a park; a place for the community to play and be in nature together, with a nod to the region’s thriving outdoor recreation industry. The highlight of the park will be what Velosolutions said is one of, if not, the largest bike park of its kind in the Americas — a pump track with a paved surface alongside a variety of other tracks.
For more than just bikes, the tracks offer places to ride skateboards, scooters, adaptive wheelchairs, and more. This park will also offer courses that simulate trail riding in the mountains with jumps and other features. In addition, there will be a one-mile walking track around the whole property and a lawn for picnics and games and hosting activities such as concerts and movie nights.
“We want to start with the landscape component versus ending with that,” Ellison said. “That is one of our differentiators — starting with the end in mind.”
“We want this to be a place people want to come to, including us,” Watkins said. “This is our home. This is where we work. This is where our headquarters is located. We want it to be enjoyable, and we want to share that with everyone.”
As the Beacon Blanket Mill was once home to more than 4,000 employees, manufacturing was the center of the community for many years. The partners have ties with this tradition, as some of their grandparents were mill employees, and many of the existing community members have ties to the old factory as well.
The project focuses on building community by creating spaces for manufacturing businesses to call home. While there is 100,000 square feet of space in the 10-acre manufacturing site, there will not be thousands of employees here in the future due to site constraints. However, the opportunity for entrepreneurial manufacturing to take advantage of these smaller industrial spaces is significant. As outdoor recreation is a function of the property, the space aligns well with outdoor gear production, though the property is not exclusive to that sector.
“The idea is to have many different types of users,” Server said. “Some larger and some smaller users can come together and share amenities, loading docks, and things like that, but it’s hard to say what the final mix or headcount will be. As we are all very entrepreneurial, we love the idea of this place becoming a launchpad for businesses to hatch and grow.”
With the mill site strategically located about two minutes from the interstate, the partnership is hopeful the prime location will be attractive to companies as a center for manufacturing and employment. As the former mill also developed Beacon Villages surrounding the 40-acre site as housing for their employees, the current partnership envisions a new version of a town in Swannanoa as well.
Ellison, Sarver, and Watkins all agree the deep dive into the purpose discovery work in the planning stages of this revitalization project was of the utmost importance, and helped drive the direction and mission of the project.
“This is a business opportunity, but also a community opportunity,” Sarver said.
Ellison agreed. “I would encourage people that are developing land, space, and businesses to stop at the very beginning phases and do this deeper work to find what is truly their purpose and intended results, and then work from there. It is possible to discover a way to take care of our community, our environment, and to earn a purposeful profit in business all at the same time if people think about it a little differently.”