It’s a bitterly cold January morning in Asheville with snow flurries falling slowly, but residents of the city’s Five Points neighborhood aren’t letting that stop them from getting outside.
A few parked cars dot a bend in the residential Dortch Avenue, pulled onto the limited shoulder between the road and “the woods,” as locals call the area that borders the neighborhood. As people, some with their dogs in tow, step onto the trail leading into the forest, they pass two signs.
The first, a colorful illustration of trees and wildlife, is planted in the ground and reads: “SAVE THE WOODS at Five Points.” At the bottom, it urges passersby to “respect the locals” and directs them to saveUNCAwoods.org. An attached flyer advertises an upcoming protest in support of the cause.
A few feet away, a sign adorned with the UNC Asheville logo states that the woods are university property and “not designated for public use.” It warns that the area “contains hazards” such as “unstable and fallen trees,” “risk of falling branches,” and “uneven terrain.” Several carrying the same message have popped up around the woods over the past year, though the site has long been used by locals and the university for recreation, research, and other activities.
Together, they offer a physical representation of a heated debate in Asheville.
Last June, UNCA announced that it planned to develop roughly 50 acres of property the university owns south of its main campus—including the woods—into a “multi-purpose stadium” that would house the Asheville City Soccer Club and the university’s soccer teams. UNCA also wanted the mixed-use development to include market-rate housing for students, university employees, and others in the city, as well as retail space.
The woods are designated as part of the university’s 210 acres of “millennial campus,” a marker outlined in state law and UNC System policy that gives schools additional flexibility for developments on the properties, including the option to establish public-private partnerships.
Chancellor Kimberly van Noort and Board of Trustees Chair Roger Aiken have said the project would boost and diversify UNCA’s revenue at a critical time, after years of significant challenges to its enrollment and finances and questions about the viability of its model as a small, public liberal arts university.
But a bet on big-time athletics could be risky. Mixed-use stadium projects often don’t deliver the financial benefits they promise their communities. Some critics—including at least one member of the UNC System Board of Governors, which will have the final say over the university’s plans—doubt the vision will entice current or prospective UNCA students. Plus, other public universities like UNC-Chapel Hill and UNC Charlotte are also making major wagers on football and other sports.
“Why is that the priority of UNC Asheville? I have not seen anywhere, by building a soccer stadium, that we attracted more students,” Board of Governors member Swadesh Chatterjee said at a meeting last July. “I am not convinced, and I am concerned, to be honest with you.”
Adding to the controversy is a feeling among many in Asheville, including residents of the Five Points neighborhood and surrounding areas, that the university didn’t meaningfully consult with the community about its plans. Local elected officials have voiced similar concerns.
“One of our main criticisms is the lack of, really, an honest dialogue with the university,” said David Clarke, a UNCA biology professor who lives within walking distance of the woods.
The outcry was enough for UNCA to back off the proposal, at least temporarily. Last August, just a few weeks after an initial part of the proposal went before the Board of Governors, the university announced it would pause its work so an external commission could make recommendations on how the property should be used. After months of delays, that study is now underway and is expected to be completed by May.
While a soccer stadium is “certainly a viable option” for the woods, van Noort told The Assembly she is open to a different plan. The project’s ultimate form could be a key indicator of UNCA’s vision for its future—and how it will be viewed by its closest neighbors.
Two Roads Diverged in a Wood
The woods—a “high quality natural area,” in Clarke’s words—are a point of pride for Five Points residents. In a 2018 neighborhood plan approved by Asheville city staff, residents identified “protecting and enhancing the ecological sustainability” of the area as a key goal. That included a wish to work with UNCA to “keep the Urban Forest intact and encourage users of the forest to be stewards and advocates.”
The woods were a major draw when Clarke bought his home in 2004.
“I’ve had it pretty good for the last 25 years,” Clarke said.
But things began to change last winter, when Clarke and his neighbors noticed that heavy drilling equipment had arrived. Crews were sometimes working just steps from people’s homes, without prior notice. The activity spooked some locals, who started to organize.
They formed the “Friends of the Woods,” a group that says it recognizes the challenges the university faces and supports UNCA’s success, but argues that developing the woods would harm an important natural resource in a city where Hurricane Helene damaged as much as 40% of trees. An online petition in support of their cause has collected nearly 17,000 signatures, and the group’s colorful signs can be found all around Asheville.
The university pressed on. In early March 2025, van Noort announced plans to develop the woods. Possible uses of the land, she wrote in an op-ed, might include housing, “research industry collaborations,” childcare facilities, or spaces for recreation, sports, and entertainment.
Campus leaders gathered input from students, university employees, and the community in a series of three listening sessions in April. But in her op-ed, van Noort noted that then-unnamed “partners” in the Asheville region would guide the ultimate proposal for the property.
That relationship appears to have been the impetus for the university’s decision to pursue the stadium development, which it announced in June 2025. Van Noort told the Board of Governors in July that the project “came about through a relationship we have had for several years with the Asheville City Soccer Club,” which has long played on UNCA’s 1,000-seat Greenwood Field.
The club “approached” the university about the millennial campus land as part of its vision to move its teams, which currently compete in amateur leagues, to a professional level, van Noort said. To do so, the teams would need a larger, dedicated arena—like the 5,000-seat venue initially proposed for the woods property. The developer working with the university, Asheville Stadium District Real Estate Project LLC, is a collaboration between the team and an Ohio-based sports and real estate company, and UNCA was not involved in its formation, van Noort told The Assembly.
(Asheville City SC did not respond to requests for interviews or comment for this story. One of the club’s owners previously told the Asheville Watchdog: “A purpose-built stadium will allow our teams to move up to the next level and unlock the club’s full potential.”)
Van Noort told the board that the stadium, which she described as “the only outdoor facility of this size in Western North Carolina,” could also host concerts, festivals, and other entertainment events year-round. The university has estimated the project would generate “over $250 million, hundreds of jobs, and substantial increases in new sales tax revenue each year.”
That vision aligns with what some area tourism officials want to see. Last March, the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority—a volunteer board that oversees the use of occupancy taxes generated from tourists staying in local hotels—identified capital projects related to “large entertainment and cultural facilities” as their top priority for awarding grants in upcoming cycles, Explore Asheville spokesperson Kyle McCurry told The Assembly. Such projects were followed by “indoor and outdoor sports facilities,” including multi-use venues, and “family-friendly attractions and experiences.”
The Big Green
Van Noort has also argued that the stadium and the other elements of the proposed development would offer a “direct financial benefit” for the university.
UNCA has faced major budget deficits in recent years, most notably a $6 million shortfall two years ago that led van Noort to eliminate four academic departments and limit the offerings of another, among other cost-cutting measures.
That came after the university saw its enrollment drop by nearly 25% over roughly six years, beginning in 2018. After improving slightly in 2024, enrollment was down 6%—or about 180 students—last fall, making it the only UNC System school to not see growth this academic year. UNCA attributes the blip to Helene, which made it difficult to recruit students.
Any decline in enrollment can have significant impacts at small liberal arts schools that almost exclusively educate undergraduate students, like UNCA. Universities with large graduate or online degree programs often use that revenue to make up for years with lower undergrad tuition revenue or state funding.
“You always want options,” said Aiken, the chair of the Board of Trustees whose day job is in financial services. “The revenue stream from [the millennial campus] gives us options.”
At its July meeting, the UNC System Board of Governors approved a request from the university to lease the woods property to its endowment for a 99-year term. The endowment would handle negotiations with the developer, which was expected to enter into a renewable 50-year lease for the project, and eventually collect proceeds it would redistribute to the school, van Noort explained.
The university expected its endowment to receive about $1 million in rent from the project each year starting five years into the lease, unless it was “up, running, and turning profit” before that, van Noort said. Rent would increase 3% annually thereafter.
The university anticipated the project to be mostly developer-funded, which some stadium-finance experts consider to be a better model than using public funds, and did not plan to take on debt or put up any equity.
Similarly, leaders have framed the proposal’s private, market-rate housing as an attempt to alleviate one of the university’s most significant demands without taking on debt. More than half of students lived on campus last fall, resulting in 99% bed occupancy—among the highest rates in the UNC System. In a July op-ed, Aiken said the university did not have the capacity to build new residence halls on its own and that the millennial-campus units would be “attractively priced.”
BOG member Chatterjee, who has opposed the stadium project, said he supports the housing element of the proposal.
But questions remain about whether the project would pay off. A recent New York Times analysis found that out of 12 professional soccer stadium developments around the country that included mixed-use housing in their initial proposals, “none have been fully realized.” Only five have been even partially completed.
Email records The Assembly obtained show that Board of Governors member John Fraley forwarded the Times article to budget committee chair Kirk Bradley last November without comment.
“Interesting but these are very large stadiums with different goals in mind,” Bradley responded. “While the UNCA project has its own feasibility analysis to complete, I’m not sure this is comparable in many ways.”
Fraley replied that he agreed the stadiums the Times analyzed were larger, but disagreed that they were not comparable “or at least relevant.”
“Even though it cites some larger stadiums, it goes on to say that mixed use housing is frequently delayed or incomplete and the revenue and economic activity promised is questionable,” he wrote, also noting that there is “no evidence” the projects attract new investment, create jobs, or raise living standards.
Fraley told The Assembly that, should the university include a stadium in its final proposal, he thinks it will be crucial for the Board of Governors to compare UNCA’s proposal to similar projects. He would want to understand how successful other stadiums have been, their sizes, and the reasons given for building them, he said.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what would dictate how you would feel about a project at UNC Asheville,” he said. “But it would be one thing to consider.”
I Speak for the Trees
Fraley and Chatterjee were also among a handful of board members who expressed concerns last summer that UNCA had not gathered adequate input from the Asheville community. Local elected officials, including Asheville Mayor Esther Manheimer and Buncombe County commissioners, wrote letters to van Noort asking for more transparency, communication, and engagement before the project moved forward.
Students also took the matter into their own hands.
Last fall, the first cohort of the university’s master’s in environmental resilience program spent the semester analyzing the proposal through the framework of the U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit, which helps leaders assess and manage the environmental risks of developing a given area. Their goal was to come up with alternatives that would accomplish UNCA’s stated aims while limiting environmental impacts and prioritizing community preferences, said student Angelina Herbert.
“We really wanted to show that what UNCA wants is not incompatible with the UNCA community or the broader Asheville community,” Herbert said.
As part of their work, which is published online, the class surveyed 117 students and 65 faculty. They found students’ top choices were academic buildings, outdoor recreation facilities, increased dining options, and housing. Faculty gave similar answers, though they also expressed interest in a childcare facility. Only one student and four faculty members ranked a stadium among their top priorities, while many said they were against any development in the woods.
The class’s alternative proposals included a “low development” option that would feature a childcare center, student housing, a sculpture forest, and a dedicated outdoor classroom, and a “medium development” proposal that added a community center, hub for outdoor gear rentals, coffee shop, and outdoor amphitheater. In a separate proposal, they also suggested building housing and an outdoor classroom at another millennial campus site away from the woods.
Asheville residents have their own suggested alternatives. A group of architects, engineers, and designers met for a three-day “visioning workshop” last August that resulted in several ideas, including building a stadium on other campus sites outside of the woods.
Herbert said her class hoped their work could be a starting point. “I feel like we kind of scratched the surface of what community participation could be,” she said.
The commission announced last August, which began its work last month, could offer such opportunities. Van Noort said university leaders are aware of the alternative proposals—her chief of staff attended the master’s students’ final presentation—and are “not averse” to them as they enter a new phase of planning. “We want people to come up with viable, sustainable, workable, and realistic ideas,” she said.
“We’re looking at everything,” van Noort added. “But I think, also, people need to understand sometimes there are very real reasons why this or that won’t work, and the difficulty is in kind of explaining that.”
The commission, which includes several current and former trustees among its 14 members, plans to hold one-on-one interviews with 100 community members and additional virtual conversations with small groups next month, UNCA spokesperson Eden Bloss told The Assembly. There will also be an online feedback platform, and the commission plans to share a report in April. (Van Noort and Aiken are not serving on the commission, a decision they say they made to avoid swaying the group.)
Otherwise, the commission will meet privately because its work will involve “reviewing confidential materials and discussing sensitive information,” per the university.
Asheville’s mayor told The Assembly in a statement that she is hopeful. “I was encouraged by the university’s decision to pause current plans and hope that any future consideration includes transparent communication, meaningful public engagement, and a commitment to maintaining the integrity of the forest while conversations continue,” said Manheimer. “I believe thoughtful collaboration and open communication can help ensure that institutional needs and community values are both respected as the university considers its path forward.”
But some opponents remain skeptical.
“This feels to us like a fairly transparent way to avoid the kind of public accountability they said they wanted when they paused the project,” said Woody Davis, who lives near the woods.
“We’re not going to make everybody happy,” Aiken acknowledged. “But we’ve got to do what’s in the best interest of this university, and our responsibility to the community and to the city and to the county.”
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