Costco renews Asheville store talks after project delay

Asheville’s long-discussed Costco has gone from withdrawn to back in the room, a sharp reminder that retail projects can disappear for months and return as soon as the numbers move. On June 17, Mayor Esther Manheimer said the city was back in talks with Costco about a 160,000-square-foot warehouse in the Enka Commerce Park area, which would be Western North Carolina’s first Costco.

That turnaround matters because the company had pulled its application in February after saying required on-site and off-site improvements had increased the project’s scope, timeline and anticipated costs. City staff later said discussions resumed with Costco, the property owner and the N.C. Department of Transportation, and council member Sage Turner said several meetings and renegotiations had already taken place. Officials still had not set a timeline for a decision.

For workers, the renewed talks point to a hiring surge that could show up fast if the project clears its hurdles. Council member Bo Hess said the warehouse could bring “good-paying jobs,” more competition, tax revenue and economic opportunity, and project filings described a warehouse, a 32-pump fuel station and a tire center on about 39.6 acres at 264 and 274 Enka Heritage Parkway and 1455 Sand Hill Road. That kind of buildout would likely ripple through front-end, merch, food and fuel-center staffing, and it would matter to current Costco employees in the region who may watch for transfers, seasonal shifts or future promotions tied to a new store.

The sticking point is still the same one that pushed the project off the table in the first place: transportation. Hess said city leaders were looking at Smokey Park Highway and other infrastructure needs to make the site feasible, while Manheimer said she had asked state transportation leaders to look for creative solutions. The project’s path since February shows how quickly a “dead” site can re-enter the pipeline once road costs and site design are renegotiated, and that makes Asheville a useful warning for workers and nearby residents alike: the next hiring wave can arrive before the parking lots and road plans are fully settled.