State recommends selling Craggy prison site on open market

State officials have put Craggy Correctional Center on a path that could reshape one of Buncombe County’s most visible public sites: the Woodfin prison would be sold on the open market rather than transferred directly to the county. That choice would strip Buncombe County of first say over a riverfront property near Asheville and leave the future of the land to a buyer the county does not control.

The recommendation landed as the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction continued winding down Craggy for a late-summer 2026 shutdown. About 250 incarcerated men are expected to be moved to other state prisons over the coming months, and the department has said the closure stems from chronic staffing shortages. Craggy needs about 50 officers to supervise roughly 250 inmates, while the prison system has said its 77 employees will be offered jobs at other western North Carolina facilities and no layoffs are planned.

For Buncombe County, the larger issue is not just where the prisoners go but who gets the land. A transfer to county ownership could have kept the site in public hands, allowing local leaders to consider uses tied to emergency services, justice operations or other county needs. An open-market sale, by contrast, could put redevelopment decisions in the hands of a private buyer or another outside entity, opening the door to housing, commercial use or speculative development on a major parcel along the French Broad River corridor.

Craggy has long been part of the local corrections system. The North Carolina Department of Adult Correction says the medium- and minimum-security prison for adult males consolidated with Buncombe Correctional Center in March 2014. State history also traces the site back to the original Craggy prison, which Buncombe County commissioners dedicated in May 1924 and which later became one of the facilities the state took responsibility for under the 1931 Conner Bill.

The closure comes after years of staffing strain. In August 2021, the state said both Craggy and Swannanoa Correctional Center for Women had significant vacancies, underscoring a pattern that has now turned into a shutdown. That timing matters in Buncombe County, where detention officials have separately warned of overcrowding and a safety crisis at the county jail. With local jail pressure already high, the loss of a county-controlled Craggy site leaves one less public option on the table and more of the future of a major Buncombe property to the market.