ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — Costco’s long-running effort to open an Asheville store cleared a key hurdle Wednesday night.
The Asheville Planning and Zoning Commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of conditional rezoning for the proposed store at 264 and 274 Enka Heritage Parkway and 1455 Sand Hill Road. City Council is scheduled to take up the proposal Tuesday, Oct. 13.
Plans call for a 168,258-square-foot Costco warehouse, a fuel station with 32 pumps and 914 parking spaces. The conditional zoning would allow up to 950 parking spaces. The project also includes a 10-foot-wide multiuse path through the site.
Much of Wednesday night’s discussion focused on trees.
The project is seeking a modification that would require a minimum 13% tree canopy instead of the 15% normally required for the site.
City planner Sam Starr-Baum said some of the trees that would be preserved are on a portion of the property in Buncombe County, outside Asheville’s jurisdiction. Because the city cannot require those trees to be preserved and maintained, they cannot be counted toward Asheville’s tree-canopy requirement.
Attorney Derek Allen, representing the applicant, said the site currently has few trees and most of the existing trees are on the county portion. If that land could be included, he said, the project would have about 16% tree canopy.
The landscaping plan calls for 741 trees, Allen said, 267 more than required by the ordinance.
Commissioners questioned whether more trees could be planted on the Asheville portion of the property to reach the city’s 15% standard.
Project representatives pointed to constraints including underground utilities, stormwater infrastructure and the site’s history as a brownfield. Civil engineer Nettie Boyle said contaminated soil lies beneath old building slabs and a clean soil cap, limiting where the ground can be disturbed.
Sharon Summerall of the Coalition of Asheville Neighborhoods, who said she previously served on the city’s Urban Forestry Commission, also questioned the tree-canopy calculations during the public hearing. She urged the development team to work with the city’s urban forester to see whether the project could reach 15%.
Before the vote, commissioners and the applicant agreed to revise the tree-canopy condition. The 13% minimum remains, but language explaining the reasons for the modification was removed.
Traffic also drew questions.
Costco’s traffic engineer said an updated traffic impact analysis is under review by the N.C. Department of Transportation. The updated study evaluates Costco traffic without two outparcels included in an earlier proposal.
Proposed improvements include a second left-turn lane from Smokey Park Highway onto Jacob Holm Way and dual left-turn lanes from Sand Hill Road onto Smokey Park Highway. A separate right-turn lane would also be added at Costco’s southern private driveway onto Sand Hill Road. The traffic engineer said the improvements are expected to be completed before the store opens.
The Costco site would have access from Jacob Holm Way to the north and Sand Hill Road to the south. The access roads would be privately owned rather than city streets.
The historic Enka clock tower would remain, with plans calling for landscaping, benches and bicycle parking around it. The multiuse path also would pass through the area.
Allen told commissioners Costco has been looking for an Asheville site for more than 20 years and said Asheville has been the company’s most requested location in its Southeast region.
He said the store would initially employ 225 to 250 people and eventually 400 or more. Allen also said about 19,000 Costco members currently live within a 45-minute drive of Asheville.
Allen said the project would not receive local or state economic incentives.
The proposal has been in the works for more than a year. An earlier version was scheduled to go before Planning and Zoning in January but was withdrawn before the hearing. The project was first reviewed by the city’s Technical Review Committee in November 2025.
The current plans still must go through final technical review, including further review of grading, stormwater and other requirements. No date has been set for that review.
The next major step comes Tuesday, when City Council is scheduled to hold a public hearing and consider the conditional zoning changes.