Boone Long-Term Growth

[Rekdiver]

I'll be honest, I think Boone growth plateaus to an extent, and Ashe County see's tremendous growth.

With 221 now 4 lanes from Deep Gap into Jeff/west Jeff you are right. We got our Cabin in 2009 and the growth is measurable. It’s an easy 30 min drive into Boone or Blowing Rock from the center of town.

[fjblair]

Wait until the huge project behind Harris Teeter opens if you want to see what poor planning looks. Shadowline Drive will be nightmare. The town needed better leadership, but the residents and students kept voting for the same people year after year.

[BeauFoster]

Wait until the huge project behind Harris Teeter opens if you want to see what poor planning looks. Shadowline Drive will be nightmare. The town needed better leadership, but the residents and students kept voting for the same people year after year.

I noticed that when we were up in Boone last weekend. For the life of me I cannot figure that one out

[BayouApp]

Depends on how fast you want to turn in to Asheville. Destroy every hill/mountainside with houses. Traffic will be 10x worse. Locals will be priced out of town. More than likely your cabin/hotel rentals for games would go up. Its a snowball and it doesn't get prettier the bigger it gets.

Dear lord please don’t turn Boone into Asheville. I was born and raised in Asheville. I still live in Buncombe County outside the city, and love where I live, but absolutely HATE the city of Asheville.

GO APPS!

Grew up in Arden. Haven’t lived in the area in 14 years but every time I go back to visit family, I avoid Asheville as much as I can. It’s blown up and traffic has become a nightmare. I can’t imagine what the housing market is like there now.

AVL housing market is unaffordable for most people that work in the tourist industry...hotels, attractions, etc. Two homes we owned there about 20 years ago that we paid $150K-ish for now sell for $600K plus. Keep telling wife not to look at zillow!

[NoLongerLurking]

I'll be honest, I think Boone growth plateaus to an extent, and Ashe County see's tremendous growth.

With 221 now 4 lanes from Deep Gap into Jeff/west Jeff you are right. We got our Cabin in 2009 and the growth is measurable. It’s an easy 30 min drive into Boone or Blowing Rock from the center of town.

Yes. And, those 30 minutes are guaranteed as opposed to getting stuck coming from Foscoe/BE on 105.

[1ASU78]

Wait until the huge project behind Harris Teeter opens if you want to see what poor planning looks. Shadowline Drive will be nightmare. The town needed better leadership, but the residents and students kept voting for the same people year after year.

What is going on there behind HT? Housing?

[Rekdiver]

Well if RL were planning Boone would still be __________. You fill in the blank.

[Bootsy]

Wait until the huge project behind Harris Teeter opens if you want to see what poor planning looks. Shadowline Drive will be nightmare. The town needed better leadership, but the residents and students kept voting for the same people year after year.

What is going on there behind HT? Housing?

There is a large apartment complex going up on Shadowline, right behind the shopping center where Harris Teeter and Peppers are located. It's bound to add some serious traffic jams/backups to that area.

The traffic in Watauga County is bad and getting worse. The eastern side of Avery County is right behind it. It's easy to see Ashe county has great prospects for growth: way more open space and West Jeff/Jeff are cute towns with a lot of potential.

I rode over to West Jeff last summer, and in many ways it reminded of me of Boone 30 years ago.

[MAD Doctor]

And of course, there’s this beauty:

https://www.wataugademocrat.com/news/by ... 42f22.html

[appbud]

Recently purchased a place in Fleetwood. It is very convenient to both West Jefferson and Boone.

[ShagNC]

Interesting ideas, and the gondola idea would be pretty cool if it ran across campus. Maybe that would encourage more people to attend games at the Holmes Center. As for me, I'm not sure how excited I'd be riding in a gondola in winter when the wind's usually howling.

On another not, I've often wondered about the Town of Boone's response when App's leadership starts crowing about having 20,000 on-campus students? The town's infrastructure is already strained with the current enrollment. Adding in the weekend footballers, vacationers, Snowbirds, leaf lookers, ski bunnies makes a bad situation worse.

Even if App does buy up everything in their backyard, does that make traffic better or worse on near the Loop? Also, does App have any restrictions on dorm rats bringing cars on campus? They didn't when I was there but that was many many moons ago.

Traffic up here last summer was really heavy, every weekend reminded me of typical fall weekends. So this is definitely not going away. We try to find alternate routes around Boone to avoid traffic when possible. But it's not always easy.

Something has to happen; maybe they can create a Senior year project for our students seeking Community & Regional Planning degrees? It would be cool to see what they come up with as solutions.I'd bet there are no easy answers here, but you've got to start somewhere.

Has the school ever stated their ultimate goal for enrollment? How big is too big for App?

[ASUchipman]

I rode over to West Jeff last summer, and in many ways it reminded of me of Boone 30 years ago.
[/quote]

Yuck West Jefferson is terrible everyone stay far far away. Don’t even bother to look there. I hear everyone there has cooties.

[Cro-Magnon App]

I like Crumpler. And the river runs through there in a wide swath. Boone is already too crowded. Put a cap on the number of students accepted.

[huskie3]

The state mandates the enrollment numbers.

[Bootsy]

I like Crumpler. And the river runs through there in a wide swath. Boone is already too crowded. Put a cap on the number of students accepted.

Crumpler looks beautiful, but the altitude is only 2500 ft above sea level. So it's a little too muggy & buggy for us.

[Bootsy]

Also wondering, does anyone know if Boone/Watauga County have developed a long-term growth plan and/or a master plan for urban development?

[mikeyosef]

I'll be honest, I think Boone growth plateaus to an extent, and Ashe County see's tremendous growth.

Not sure about Ashe County growth but Boone cannot grow much more; certainly not to anything near Asheville. The valley is just not big enough. Traffic for the population could not get much worse and while I think the proposed "Boone Bypass" might alleviate traffic some it won't create opportunity for more growth in Boone itself. I like the idea of some novel mass transportation plan but that seems a little pie in the sky to me. So far the only thing I've seen that's worked to reduce traffic was the pandemic lock down and nobody wants to go through that again.