Client Feature: Asheville Downtown Association board president, Adrian Vassallo talks downtown with us!

From Humble Beginnings

Downtown After 5 is now known as this lively, thriving event that happens the third Friday of every month. It’s easily distinguished from the other Fridays of the month by the swarms of people that flock to Lexington Avenue, shutting down S. Lexington to street traffic and opening up completely to vendors and music. Looking at it now, you can see how it spawned out of someone’s smart idea to roll out a keg and have a band play in order to draw people to the downtown area after the downtown area had been devastated by the suburban sprawl. It’s quite remarkable to see just how large the event has become and just how many people come out for it every month. Asheville Downtown Association board president, Adrian Vassallo, said that there were close to 6,000 people that came to the last Downtown After 5 and his main focus is to make sure that those numbers continue to go up.

I can guarantee you that a portion of the Downtown After 5 crowd doesn’t visit downtown on a regular basis and definitely doesn’t walk the Lexington corridor, or the Broadway corridor, or the Haywood corridor. When you come to Downtown After 5 now you can’t park there, you have to park somewhere else and you have to walk to the event. That’s part of the magic is that those attendees are walking by businesses they wouldn’t walk by otherwise. That’s why during that night both before and after you walk downtown and it’s packed full of people - because guess what, they’re exploring. They’ve gone to the event, they’ve had a beer or two, they’ve heard some good music, and now they want to go out to dinner, they want to go shopping, they want to see something else and they’re going to see something new. We left downtown after five Friday night and we were walking by Local Taco and saw that they were getting ready to be open - we’re not the only people having that experience. We ended up going to eat at creperie in the courtyard, they had an awesome band, we were there till midnight. That’s the kind of experience we want attendees to have Downtown After 5. Not just coming and enjoying the great event that we’re doing, but exploring downtown and become aware of what you don’t know is going on down here.

How long have you been involved in this event?

I’ve been involved for the last eight years. Some of the early people that were involved with the Downtown Association are Bob Carr, your neighbor at Tops for Shoes. He was one of the originators of the Downtown Association, he sent a letter to fellow businesses on behalf of the Asheville Revitalization commission. Back then it was the Downtown Revitalization Commission that had been initiated to look at what could be done to make downtown better. They knew that part of what needed to happen was that they needed an independent body to be an advocate for the changes that needed to occur. So Bob had a meeting at what was Stone Soup, which is now Mellow Mushroom. Invited everyone in, I’ve got a copy of the letter, actually. That’s what started it back in 1987 and then a year later they decided that one of the things they could do is have special events which gets back to Downtown After 5 and with those special events we’ll pull people in.

Tell me a little bit about the evolution you have seen with this event and the Downtown Association:

When I first moved here almost ten years ago, the Downtown Association was basically doing two events, Downtown After 5, at that point, was traditionally held on pack square. As it evolved over 20 years, it grew into a much bigger event and pack square became its home. the other event that they were doing was Nouveau Night which was when Nouveau Beaujolais wine is released in November. It was a wine and cheese night it was held in the Haywood Park Hotel. They were also doing the advocacy work, because you got to realize the events are only half of what we do, but it’s the most visible thing we do. Most people don’t realize what goes on behind the scenes. Last night I was at city council  advocating for downtown investment in the city budget for this coming fiscal year. I was one voice and we need to have more voices join that to make it relevant and for the city council to hear that. They see some of the concerns in downtown, but don’t realize that there are a lot of people who are impacted by our downtown’s vibrancy.

Vassallo is also interested in the vast amount of developmental potential for the downtown area that is being overlooked. He says that the downtown area, in terms of city planning, is a lot larger than people think and largely underdeveloped.

Building community, economic development is really what is driving a lot of my passion with the ADA because I feel like we have so much more opportunity in the downtown, we’ve got such a fun thriving, eclectic community and we can have more of it. I look around at some of our greatest success stories in downtown in the last decade and some of these are businesses that never would have been around 10-25 years ago.

Vassallo feels the endless potential for Asheville to grow...

Towards the south slope and over by the tunnel road bridge, there is raw land there that could be developed for specific uses and if we focus on encouraging those developments, we’ll grow tax base in those areas, we’ll grow downtown residents, we’ll grow downtown workers and that’s what we want. When you have businesses centered in a downtown core, and residents centered in the downtown core, your community gains efficiencies with city services because they don’t have to drive. Everyone is in a tight area so walkability becomes viable, everyone can walk to work. Everything that you want in a downtown community can happen in our downtown.

Vassallo comments on the new places popping up around town and how important they are, he explains, “Having a great vibrant downtown spawns other things and attracts new things.” That’s why it is so important to spread the word about new places and also to go and see them for yourself. He says:

We’ve got a lot of great trends happening right now and we need to support them and embrace them, but we also need to realize that the city, as far as city government, needs to have an investment in that as far as infrastructure. You go down the south slope and the sidewalks are a mess. There are things that the city can do to direct pedestrian traffic towards the south slope. We can change the infrastructure to become more welcoming.

But what can be done to make sure that Asheville maintains it’s original feel as it grows?

Many people that sit on the Downtown Commission are from the Asheville Downtown Association. One of the responsibilities of the downtown commission is design review, so if you’re a developer and you’re going to  locate any new project, whether it’s a new building or renovations you have to go through the design review process with the Downtown Commission and from an aesthetic perspective there’s definitely some things that the design review subcommittee tries to impose on developers. Your project needs to fit the Asheville landscape. During that process we also coach them on how their project could really fit into downtown. It’s important to also note that there are no ordinances to prohibit chains from coming in. Chains will come to Asheville. Chains that want to be in Asheville are going to have to embrace Asheville and not asheville embrace them.

What’s your main focus right now?

Right now we’re looking at some really basic city services that need to be added to the downtown core. We know the influx of not just citizens and daily workers, but tourists that come through and you can’t have a downtown that’s dirty and unsafe. You got to focus on fundamentals of cleanliness and safety. One of the comments I made last night was that we need to have recycling downtown, not just residential and commercial recycling, but recycling for the pedestrian. People that are walking around that have grabbed a drink or something and they’re walking through downtown and they don’t have anywhere to put that and we don’t have enough trash cans and that’s why we have a litter issue. People are not going to carry around their trash with them, they are either going to find the most convenient spot or they are going to drop it. That’s a sad fact.

The other litter issue that the city faces is cigarette butts, Vassallo tells me that it only takes three cigarette butts to kill and trout and everytime it rains all the cigarette butts that have been dropped in the downtown area are being washed into the waterways. He is hoping for new bins or a smoking oasis to be installed downtown so that smokers will have more options. Vassallo feels that as long as we grow tobacco there will always be smokers so we need to have an environmental accommodation so that we’re not impacting our wildlife.

Sign up for Downtown Asheville’s Clean Up Day Here: http://www.ashevilledowntown.org/node/2153

Treat Yo' Self Tuesdays #tyt

We are a salon geared towards folks of the busier variety. We have clients who have recognized that they need to schedule special time to pamper themselves or it simply wont be done. In addition to that, we are busy people ourselves. Most of us are parents or have three million projects we are currently working on outside of the salon, or all of the above. We too forget to give ourselves some special time to treat ourselves right. Well it's gone on too long! Adorn is now declaring every Tuesday as Treat Yo' Self Tuesday! This means anything from wearing something extra special just because you want to, painting your own nails at home, getting them done in the salon, getting your hair done, or just having that treat you've been depriving yourself. Whatever it may be, Tuesday is a day for YOU. Be sure to document that one special thing you choose to do today and tag us on instagram @adorn_asheville and hashtag it with #tyt, so we can see what fun thing you did!

Treating yourself in Asheville

A few special ideas for treating yourself in Asheville 

Adorn Salon and Boutique :
 Adorn Signature:

30 min Mani $30
45 min Pedi $38
Includes organic aromatherapy soak, natural nail and cuticle care, organic sugar exfoliation and massage. Polish or hot towel finish.

Lavender Milk And Honey:
30 min Mani $38
45 min Pedi $48
Bathe your skin in nourishing lavender oils, milk and honey. Enjoy an organic sugar scrub and massage and finish with a lavender aroma wrap.

Custom Treatment:
30 min Mani $38
45 min Pedi $48
Allow us to assist you in choosing appropriate aromas and ingredients from our certified organic herbal apothecary.

Just The Basics:
15 min Mani $25
30 min Pedi $30
Organic soak, natural nail and cuticle care, polish, buff or natural finish.

Eco-Fin Treatment
15 min add on $10
Eco-friendly paraffin alternative. 100% natural emollients & pure essential oils for luxurious and nourishing hand and foot treatments.

ExtrasFrench Add-On $5

Polish Change Only:
(does not include nail care, cuticle or callus removal)
Hands $12
Feet $15

Asheville Salt Caves : 45 min. Session for $25, kids under 3 go FREE

Grove Park Inn Spa Access Twilight Pass : $50 Tuesday - Thursday In-house guests.

                                                                         $60 Tuesday - Thursday Non-resort guests.

L'eau De Vie : For the month of June L'eau De Vie will be offering Massages at 60 Minutes - value of $80 for only $70 or 90 Minutes - value of $100 for only $90

Spa Theology : Organic Lavender Body Treatment: relaxing swedish massage, hydrating body butter, and organic lavender foot scrub, 60min value of $120 for only $100

Book any appointment with Adorn after having liked or shared any of our posts on our blog, instagram, and facebook and received $1 off for each share or like for a total of $10 in savings

     

fall in love with broo!

On the writer of the Adorn Blog: It's all about ME... and Adorn, of course!

      Ever have one of those mornings where you go to make coffee and then all that comes out is water. You investigate and try to figure out what happened, assuming the machine is faulty, only to discover that you never put in the actual coffee? Or one of those weeks where you spend all this time making a stop motion film only to have your whole system crash and then lose all that hard work you just put in?

     Well the last part is pretty specific to me and what I've just experienced, but hopefully you can sympathize. The best thing anyone can do when everything goes awry, is to take a deep breath and move on. At which point, I realized, we haven't been formally introduced. By now, it's obvious (hopefully) that Adorn has a designated person for their social media and web marketing, but who is this web woman?? If you have been loyal clients of Adorn you will absolutely know me because I have been in and around Adorn for some time, but for those of you who don't. Here's my story:

     I started working at Adorn when I was 16. Rebecca is a good friend of my family and my sister-in-law and I would come to her to get our hair cut together. On one of these trips, I was telling Rebecca all about my job search woes - because we all know a hairstylist doubles as therapist, life coach, confidence and friend - and Rebecca, being the kind of person that genuinely wants to help people any way she can, told me to drop off a resume. She told me to just write down references and past job experience in whatever way I wanted. I remember being so excited I left and wrote in pencil on a piece of notebook paper all the tiny jobs I'd had before then and I put my sister-in-law as a reference. I returned in less than an hour and that was pretty much the beginning. I started mainly sweeping hair and watching the phones after I got out of school at 3:30 p.m. till about 7:00 p.m. a few days a week. I also watched Amy's son Oliver who was no more than two at the time. By summertime, I had gotten the knack of things, which was lucky because due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, I was the only receptionist for the better part of the summer and was essentially managing the salon at 16 until we got it figured out. This meant bridal bookings, phone consultations, email correspondence, general salon maintenance, and booking artists to hang monthly.

   I used to train receptionists that were five to ten years my senior and absolutely school them on the job because it has been such a great part of my life for so long. A few regarded me with a smirk at first until they realized how much experience I had at Adorn and how much I was capable of.

    For every landmark of my teenage and adult life, Adorn has been there. They were at my graduation party when I graduated high school. When I was 19, I took a semester abroad in Sweden, Rebecca had a fundraiser to help me pay for my trip. Before I moved to NYC, It was the folks at Adorn that counseled me and helped me with my application letters to the college that I went to there.

   Now that I am out of college, Rebecca has let me have this job that utilizes the Culture and Media Bachelor's degree I earned. So, if anyone is wondering who I am and why I'm always hanging around the salon. Now you know, I'm the Adorn mascot, the baby of the family, and the one that posts on here as much as I can. I'm still figuring it out, so if you ever have any suggestions on what content you would like to see on here email us at: adornasheville@gmail.com.

Here's an example of the video stuff I did in college: 

And here I am:

Hopefully, there will be some stop motion to come!

Client Feature: Jodie Appel

panorama of the Asheville Salt Cave

It was Friday afternoon when I met up with Jodie Appel, owner of Asheville Salt Cave in Downtown Asheville on Eagle Street. Appel is a tall woman with glowing skin and a nice manner, although she gave off the impression that she was often doing several things at once most days - she seemed cheerful and warm. When you first enter the Salt Cave business, you are greeted by a multitude of salt items - things like shot glasses made of salt rock, salt lamps, and salt bath soaks. The front of the business has the look of a spa. Appel suggested we do the interview in the cave and I was keen to see for myself what it was all about. She took me back to a dark room, colorfully lit with tiny lights. It looked like some sort of cave paradise. There were two small water fixtures on either side of the room, some comfy mats on the salted floor with pillows and blankets and comfortable looking chairs, as well. We settled in on the mats and she described the room for me:

“We are in a room filled with 20 tons of Polish salt from floor to ceiling.  It’s a completely sustainable environment, so it’s actually regrowing itself as we’re in here. On our water features you can see where the salt is growing upon itself. We also get stalactites that grow from our ceiling or from the water features, so it’s always continuously growing. This room is made up of salt that we’ve taken from three different mines in Poland and on the floor we have a mixture of Dead Sea salt and that helps recreate the same 84 trace elements that we all have in our bodies and the same elements that this particular salt contains. So things like iron, magnesium, copper...things like that.

Tell me more about where the salt comes from:

We’ve taken our salt from three different mines.  One of them is called the Wieliczka mine, which is still a mine today, but they’ve changed it now to be more of a wellness center where people live for months at a time to heal from all sorts of things like pneumonia and bronchitis, asthma and allergies, skin conditions, and digestive disorders. It’s quite a beautiful space they’ve created down there that’s been around since the 1800s. They have cathedrals made out of salt, chandeliers made of salt, and statues made of salt, it’s really magical. So we were blessed to bring a little of that magic here to Asheville to share.

How did you originally get into the salt business?

My father visited a salt cave; they were on their way down here from New Jersey and they stopped in Williamsburg. I didn’t live here at the time, I lived in Greenville, and my dad has asthma and allergies, and he had a punctured lung, at that time, from a car accident. They came across a brochure in Williamsburg and didn’t know what it was about. He went in and he just thought it was a really cool space. He’s a pharmacist, so he wasn’t really thinking anything of health benefits - truly. Then he came down here, talked it up nonstop, left and about two weeks later he called us and said, ‘You know I haven’t used my inhaler in about two weeks now.’ He was pretty much even more sold than he was before, so he was on the path of ‘how do we build this? I want to create these for me and for lots of other people to heal from.’ I was a massage therapist beforehand, so I had the holistic background, and he just felt like I would be the person that would be able to take on this endeavor. I have a brother and sister and they’re involved with the business and my parents are involved as well. It’s kind of a small, family thing we have going. We all have a certain role we play, my sister does graphic design, my brother does publicity, Mom does advertising, things like that...

When exactly did you created this business?

It was about 3 ½ years ago now that we started to look at this project, we all had something to bring to the table. I think that was what my father envisioned originally. It has been working really nicely for us.

Do you have any inspirational stories from working here?

We have a woman who had radiation burns on her body from thirty years ago.  She had some chemo treatment and she’s very big into salt; she has lots of different salts on her table and she actually bathes in salt. I only knew her very briefly, but she came here with some friends and sat in for the salt cave session. I saw that she had been back that week about two times. Later, I saw her in the grocery store and she pulled me aside and she said, ‘I wanted to tell you that in one-to-two treatments my radiation burns of thirty years are totally gone.’ She said, ‘I wish I had thought faster to take pictures, but I didn’t think this was going to happen so quickly.’ So that’s a really beautiful story; we didn’t know that it would help things like that. We get a lot of people that have allergies or asthma issues that have been telling us that they’re healing really well, better than with other medications. I have a woman that comes in for sessions to help with her lupus and it totally has changed her life, when no other therapy or doctor care has really helped. A lot of people come in and then call me the next day and tell me that some kind of creative opening has happened. So not on just a physical level, but on a creative and emotional level it can bring on a change.

Have you noticed any changes personally since being around the salt?

My main thing that I noticed is physically.  I don’t think I had bad skin, but I did have acne as a problem as an adult and I feel like my skin has been so much better since being around this environment. Before we opened this business, I started to have salt lamps in my place and eating with more salt and I noticed my energy level totally shifted. I’ve always been a very drained person, taking naps during the day, and that’s totally different now. Another huge thing is that ever since going to the first salt cave in Williamsburg, which was three years ago, I haven’t been sick since. That’s a huge thing, because I was really a person who would catch colds easily. Being around here we get people that come in with colds or flu and I have not been sick at all.

Tell me a little bit about the things you have for sale up front:

We have a lot of people that don’t live here that like to come in and experience it. They have their own issues, but can’t always make it in to see us on a regular basis because they don’t live here. I feel like that’s like their way to bring something home.  from beautiful lamp styles to bath salts to inhalers, neti pots, and even salt jewelry.

The Asheville Salt Cave has two water fixtures in its room, making it a perfectly self-sustaining room and different from any other salt cave in America. The Asheville Salt Cave offers 45 minutes for the normal session time. They also offer classes, such as yoga and guided meditation. They have movie nights and kids’ activities and also offer massage, facials, and Reiki healing. Appel says she is open to whatever else the community wants to see in the space.

To find out more about the Asheville Salt Cave, visit them at their website: ashevillesaltcave.com

They have a lovely description of the benefit of salt there that says:

“Every breath of salty air we take in is an irreplaceable, natural benefit for many of our ailments. On the basis of medical knowledge and experience, we have created our unique therapeutic salt cave, where you can find the same environment as you would in natural underground salt mines. The salt in our cave comes from mines in Poland and is over 250 million years old. It is anti-bacterial, uncontaminated by dirt, and is free of toxins and pollutants.

The secret of healing in the salt cave is simple. The air is intensely saturated with negative ions along with 84 trace elements and minerals. By breathing in these elements, the body gets in balance and begins to heal itself. Our therapeutic salt cave will leave you with a newly discovered energy accomplished without medications, through a natural healing process. Our goal is to afford people of all ages the opportunity to experience a complete, holistic health benefit.”