Totally Rad: how a formerly neglected industrial complex is boosting Asheville's economy.

• Author: Boykin, Sam
• Position: ASHEVILLE

Looking to settle down in a friendly, manageable city that offered a thriving arts community, clothing designer Pattiy Torno moved from New York City to Asheville in 1984. She arrived on a Sunday, and her first stop was a macrobiotic restaurant for dinner. "The gal I was sitting next to asked me where I was staying, and I told her I had no idea. She invited me to her place and I ended up staying a week. I thought, wow, these are really generous, open-hearted people. It was such a nice change from New York City. I knew I had picked the right place to move."

The move turned out to be well-timed. Torno's first lease at a 3,000-square-foot downtown loft on Lexington Avenue cost $300 a month. At the time, downtown Asheville was a "ghost town after 5 o'clock," Torno says. But the location suited her clothing design business. Shipping products to Nordstrom and other customers across the U.S., her business peaked at about 15 employees. After five years, she felt burned out arid ready for change. She sold her business and used the assets to buy and renovate a cluster of four old brick buildings along the French Broad River in a largely neglected part of Asheville, just southwest of downtown.

Today, this area is known as the River Arts District, or RAD, and its development is helping enhance Asheville's reputation as an arts destination by supplementing the increasingly pricey central business district. It's roughly a mile-long stretch where more than 200 artists occupy some 22 building, used for decades as tanneries, cotton mills and other industrial purposes. Many are covered with colorful graffiti produced by local and national artists. There are about 10 restaurants, a couple of breweries and retail shops, and about[R] 368 apartments in the works. Over the last 30 years, through marketing, determination, and public and private investment, RAD has emerged as a top tourist destination. Growth trends suggest it will eventually merge with the booming downtown area, local officials say.

A BIG SHIFT

When Torno arrived in Asheville, the city was already a haven for artists--the Southern Highland Craft Guild opened its headquarters in 1930--and was attracting creative types and unconventional thinkers. Starting in the mid-1980s, Torno and other newcomers began buying and renting the old warehouses and factories along the French Broad River, a mile from downtown's center. A former Standard Oil distribution center building that Torno bought in 1989 is now...