Swannanoa’s Old Blanket Mill Is Becoming a Park
On the site of the Beacon Blanket factory, a nonprofit is building a community park with a giant pump track, and new shops are already opening across the street.
For more than 20 years, the lot where the Beacon Blanket mill once stood has been mostly empty. The mill, which employed thousands of people, burned in 2003, and Helene’s floods hit the site again in 2024. Now the nonprofit Beacon Foundation is turning it into Beacon Park, and Swannanoa is starting to fill in around it.
The plans include a paved pump track for bikes, skateboards, rollerblades and adaptive bikes that is expected to be the largest in the Americas. Around it go a mile-long walking path, bouldering walls, playgrounds, green space, a shaded pavilion near the greenway and an event lawn that holds 4,000 people.
“First and foremost, it is a community park,” Daniel Sapp, Beacon Park’s chief marketing officer, told Blue Ridge Public Radio. “So the bike park’s just one component.”
Help from visitors’ tax dollars
A $4.5 million grant from the Buncombe County Tourism Development Authority, which comes from taxes on hotel and vacation-rental stays, sped the project up. WLOS reported that the money cut the timeline from five years to about 10 months. Starting in 2027, the foundation plans a handful of large events to help pay for the park’s everyday amenities. Any money left after operating costs, WLOS reported, goes back to the community and to other nonprofits and Helene-recovery businesses.
The foundation told Spectrum News last month that it plans a soft opening this winter and a grand opening in the spring.
A new block across the street
The park is already drawing neighbors. Short Sleeves Coffee, Town Hardware General Store and Rite Buy Grocery have opened nearby, and Daymakers Slider Bar was set to open this summer. Helene destroyed Swannanoa’s post office and its main supermarket; both are being rebuilt in new spots.
People used to call the area “Swanna-nowhere.” Sapp has a new name for it: “Now it’s Swanna-somewhere because it’s different.”
Follow the park’s progress at beaconbikepark.org.
Sources: Blue Ridge Public Radio, WLOS, Spectrum News, Beacon Bike Park.