RADfest Weekend in a River Arts District That's Still Rebuilding

At 304 Lyman Street, the old Asheville Waste Paper Company building still has its graffiti, including the mash-up of Homer Simpson and Futurama's Bender that half of Asheville has photographed. In late April a fire went through it. BPR News reported that about 14 fire trucks responded just after 11 p.m. and crews worked until morning. The building was supposed to become the new home of Salvage Station.

A few blocks away, the studio doors are open again. The River Arts District's own homepage now says "Come visit us in the now open River Arts District." It also notes that the district was voted Best Arts District in the U.S. in the USA Today 10Best Readers' Choice Awards.

After Helene, the River Arts District came back in a particular order. Working artists and small studios returned first. The riverfront parks and the big anchor venues are still on a calendar that runs into 2030. If you plan your Nov. 14–15 visit around that order, you'll spend your afternoon inside, where the district is finished, and not walking into a construction fence.

The Studios Came Back First

The small rooms recovered fastest because they had the least to rebuild. In its spring overview of the district, ArtsAVL reported several returns: Summit Coffee reopened in a space it shares with Joyful Noise Hi-Fi at Wedge Studios, Cotton Mill Studios came back after remediation, and Village Potters reopened at a new location. ArtsAVL also reported that the Marquee had reopened. On the district's building page, the Marquee at 36 Foundy Street is now listed as a curated design center with resident artists.

Some of the spring news was new businesses, too. Mountain Xpress reported in June that Light + Love Arts had opened a family-oriented process-art studio in the district, with opening events in May.

RADfest is built on exactly that kind of space. ArtsAVL's fall events guide describes the festival as free, with open studios, gallery exhibitions, and original work for sale from hundreds of local artists. The district calendar has more going on around the festival weekend:

The listed hours don't agree. The River Arts District Artists homepage and ArtsAVL both say 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Explore Asheville's listing says noon to 8 p.m. and mentions live music, regional vendors, interactive demonstrations, a metal pour, and live block printing. I'd go by the artists' association's hours and check its page the morning you head over. If the demos go into the evening, you'll be glad you looked.

The Pink Dog Gallery show is a good reason to stop by on a quieter weekend before or after the festival. It runs four weeks, and RADfest falls right in the middle.

The River's Edge Runs on a Different Clock

If you walk down past the studios toward the French Broad, you'll see how differently the water's edge is recovering.

As of the City of Asheville's mid-October update, the French Broad River Greenway is open in two separate stretches. One runs between Amboy Riverfront Park and Hominy Creek River Park. The other runs between Craven Street Trailhead Park and French Broad River Park. The section through French Broad River Park itself is still closed because of Helene damage.

The city's French Broad Riverfront Parks Recovery project shows how long it will stay that way:

1. February 2026: The city released three design concepts and asked for public feedback.
2. June 23, 2026: The project team presented a single, unified design concept to the city's recovery boards and a council committee.
3. Summer 2026: Design reached 30 percent.
4. Fall 2026: The city planned to begin demolishing damaged facilities and to hold more input sessions focused on specific elements of the design, not the overall layout.
5. Into early 2027: The design phase continues.
6. 2027 through 2030: Construction is expected, with no firm completion date yet.

That puts RADfest 2026 in the middle of the riverfront's demolition season, about two years after the storm, with construction expected to run for years more. The studios are already welcoming the public, while the park beside them is still being designed.

The Wilma Dykeman Greenway is the dependable riverside walk right now. It's about two miles of accessible trail, with trailheads at Amboy Road and Lyman Street at one end and Hill Street and Riverside Drive at the other, open 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. The Lyman Street trailhead puts you right at the south end of the district, so a festival afternoon and a river walk fit together easily. A 0.41-mile extension that would connect the trail north to a Riverside Drive multi-use path is in design. The city's project page doesn't give a completion date.

The Big Rooms Are Still Mid-Rebuild

The same order holds for the district's large buildings. The bigger the building, the further it is from finished.

Salvage Station, 304 Lyman Street. The music venue's original home was on Riverside Drive, about a mile north. In mid-2024 the owners announced they would have to relocate by the end of that year to make way for the Interstate 26 Connector project, and then Helene left the venue in ruins. Just over a year later, they reached an agreement to turn the Lyman Street building into an indoor venue. That's the building that burned in April. After the fire, the venue's owners and the Pace family, who own the property, put out a joint statement. In it they said they were:

"moving forward together on rebuilding Salvage Station, working through this latest challenge with a shared commitment to what comes next."

According to BPR's coverage, they also said they hope to keep parts of the historic structure and the Homer/Bender mural in the rebuild. The last public update was that the rebuild is planned. No opening date has been announced.

Burial Beer Co. at Curve Studios. In April the Asheville Citizen-Times reported Curve Studios as Burial's planned new location. ArtsAVL later described the purchase as the start of a mixed-use redevelopment. It's a project in its early stages, not a taproom you can visit this fall.

Riverview Station. In February, GBX Group announced it had bought the building and was putting money into stabilization, returning tenants, and phased redevelopment. Some of it is already in use. The district calendar listed a 310 ART event at Re Imagine Studio inside Riverview Station on Oct. 19. So a few studio doors there are open while the larger building is still being worked on.

All three of these projects need owners, investors, and engineers to line up before anything opens. A single artist with a reopened room doesn't.

Planning the Weekend Around the Fences

Here's how I'd set up a RADfest visit based on what's open now:

• Start with the studios. That's what RADfest is for, and it's the part of the district that's back. Wedge Studios, Cotton Mill Studios, the Marquee, and Pink Dog Gallery are all reopened or currently hosting shows, according to ArtsAVL's spring roundup and the district's own listings.
• Park once. The River Arts District Artists' FAQ page says parking in the district is free, on the street and in designated lots. I didn't see a separate festival shuttle listed, so leave yourself some extra time on Saturday.
• For a river walk, use the Wilma Dykeman Greenway from the Lyman Street trailhead. Don't plan a route through French Broad River Park, because that section is closed.
• Follow posted signs near the water. The city asks riverfront visitors to stay out of barricaded areas and follow park staff instructions in Helene-affected areas.
• Look at 304 Lyman Street from the sidewalk. The fire marshal had already designated the structure "do not enter" before the fire.
• Come back on Thursday, Nov. 19, for the Foundation Studios open studio social from 5 to 8 p.m. It's a quieter, after-work way to see the same district.

I spend a lot of time explaining to folks how Western North Carolina is putting itself back together, one building and one trail at a time. If you're headed to RADfest and want to talk about how the River Arts District rebuild fits into the bigger Asheville picture, give me a call. I'm always glad to compare notes. Let's connect at Mark Causby.