by Jane Winik Sartwell, Carolina Public Press
October 26, 2024

Retail outlets in East Asheville, from big box stores like Walmart to specialty tourist destinations like Antique Tobacco Barn, are struggling to return to normal after Tropical Storm Helene ravaged the area in late September. 

Retail locations that remain closed for an extended time not only limit residents’ access to things like food, medicine, sanitary products, car parts and building supplies, but also leave many unemployed and without capital to spend at stores that do remain open. 

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The ripple effects of long-term retail closures — coupled with the lack of tourism spending — will stifle the Asheville economy, especially East Asheville, for months, and even years, to come. 

East Asheville retailers near the river

Many stores in the East Asheville commercial shopping district along Swannanoa River Road and the adjacent Swannanoa River are closed indefinitely, including some big box stores that provide essential goods, like Lowe’s, Walmart and Aldi. 

Other closed locations in the area near the corner of Swannanoa River Road and South Tunnel Road include a mix of local businesses and nationwide chains.

The roads themselves are severely damaged, making it hard for customers to access these stores even if they were open.

Indefinitely closed locations for stores and restaurants include Ruff Life Dog Training Services, SmartShop Self Storage, Walgreens, Discount Tire, Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, HobbyTown, The Regeneration Station, and GreatClips.

These closures leave hundreds of people out of work and without services on which they rely. 

Early on, lack of internet and phone service left stores unable to communicate with the public about their status, leading to misinformation and rumors about damage being more extensive than it was in some cases.

East Asheville supply shock

“This is a multifaceted supply shock,” Robert Tatum, professor of economics at UNC Asheville, told Carolina Public Press. 

“Companies are affected by physical damage, by closures due to lack of water. It could be that their workers can’t get there because they don’t have childcare, or their homes were damaged. There are so many coordination issues that make it really difficult to move forward in a meaningful way.”

But ultimately, big chains are in a better position to handle these supply shocks than small businesses, Tatum said. 

The Lowe’s Home Improvement in East Asheville is closed indefinitely due to flooding and damage to inventory. The store’s garden section is particularly ravaged, with the greenhouse roof all but collapsed. Because the Mooresville-based chain sells building materials necessary for do-it-yourself rebuilding projects, residents of this part of Asheville may feel its absence sorely as the weeks go on.

Lowe’s has opened a “pop-up” location on S. Tunnel Road, with a limited selection of essential items, rental trucks and a disaster-response trailer. 

But relief efforts are designed to take some responsibility off the shoulders of traditional home improvement stores like Lowe’s, said Michael Walden, North Carolina State professor of consumer economics.

“Much, if not all, of the building materials will be shipped to the region from other locations and stored at temporary facilities,” Walden told CPP. “This is not unusual for major storms. I saw this happen in Raleigh in the 1990s after Hurricane Fran. 

“Of course, consumers will adjust their buying during the rebuilding based on what is available. I think most households realize normalcy will be a long time coming. They will be happy to have the essentials back.”

Making do, giving back

A number of the major retailers are contributing financially to the region’s recovery.

Lowe’s, for instance, is donating a total of $12 million to support relief efforts in Western North Carolina. Lowe’s hosted relief events in the wake of Helene, deployed volunteers to the area, and provided financial support to affected employees.

The East Asheville Walmart is also closed indefinitely, an institution on which many rely for everyday needs. Even so, the store has made showers are available at the location to those who need it. Elsewhere in Western North Carolina, Walmart also delivered prescription medication and other essential items to a senior center in Marion via drone. 

In East Asheville, Target sits higher up on a ridge south of the Swannanoa River and avoided the flooding that plagued many of the other area stores, contrary to some claims circulating on social media.

Massive rainfall caused leaks throughout the East Asheville store, but that was the main damage it experienced thanks to its elevated location, a Target employee told CPP. The store is open with reduced hours, due to the lack of passable roads to and from the store. 

According to the East Asheville store’s answering machine, the location is actually hiring store associates. The Target company has donated a total of $4.5 million to Helene relief efforts.

“The good in this situation is that at least not all your eggs are in one basket, so if one store is closed, there’s another similar store you can rely on,” Matthew Metzgar, economics professor at UNC Charlotte. 

“Any sort of basic system, you’d like to have some backups and redundancies.”

Plus, Target, Walmart, and Lowe’s all have multiple locations throughout the Asheville area, so if roads permit, residents can travel across town for essential goods, Tatum said.

“It’s just tough in rural areas with smaller populations and less demand — you’re obviously not going to have multiple big chains or anything like that, so if one location closes, it’s a much bigger deal,” Metzgar said.

Antique Tobacco Barn

Some of the closed stores in Asheville are not necessarily essential to people’s livelihoods, but are still essential to the city’s identity. One such store is the Antique Tobacco Barn, located just west of the East Asheville cluster of big box retailers along Swannanoa River Road. The location is also directly across the road from the Swannanoa River. 

Once a bustling tourist attraction with 75 vendors of specialty antiques, it is now an empty, ravaged 77,000-square-foot shell of a barn. Its owners estimate the lost merchandise is in the millions of dollars. Much of what isn’t flowing down the Swannanoa River is in a junk pile out back. 

But some antiques survived, and employees are taking stock of them. 

“We’re starting to count little victories and joys and we hope you are too,” reads a Facebook post from the store.

The Antique Tobacco Barn hopes to reopen, at least in part, in time for its Christmas market.

“That store was able to flourish because it was in a building that would not be used for other purposes,” Tatum said. 

“The River Arts District (located to the northwest along the French Broad River) is the same way. These are cheap, old, big warehouses in a cool spot that would be good for art galleries or sprawling antique stores, but not much else. Now many of them are destroyed.

“The question is whether there are enough that remain, and enough draw back to the area, that it will still be seen as a River Arts District.”

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