River Arts District. Photo courtesy of RADA Foundation
In September 2024, Hurricane Helene turned Asheville’s River Arts District (RAD) into a landscape of water and wreckage. Studios that once hummed with glassblowers, potters and painters stood submerged, decades of creative labor lost beneath mud and debris.
“As the water receded, the realization that hundreds of artists had lost everything was a gut punch that still brings me to tears even now,” says Kimberly Self Hundertmark, executive director of the RADA Foundation.
And yet, the story did not end there. Today, after 19 months of resilience and reimagining, the RADA Foundation is under contract on a property above the floodplain to create the RAD Creative Campus, a permanent cultural anchor designed to secure the future of Asheville’s creative economy.
“The Creative Campus has been discussed previously as a way to solidify the arts’ place in the RAD,” says Hundertmark. “It offers a space, owned and run by artists, in an area where artists form the largest number of small businesses but own very little property.”
Ignite Jewelry Studios. Photo courtesy of River Arts District Artists
Plans include up to 40 affordable studios, shared maker spaces with rentable equipment, classrooms, exhibit and performance space and a welcome center. The campus is designed not only to house artists but to support education, workforce training and sustainability for the district.
“A Creative Campus above the floodplain provides the community with a safe space for equipment and studios that cannot easily be moved if another flood threatens the RAD,” says Hundertmark. “Symbolically, it is the culmination of all the hard work the arts community has put in since the storm to rebuild, support each other and become stronger and more resilient as a community.”
Beyond protecting studios, the Creative Campus is also an investment in the broader economy of Asheville and Buncombe County. Before Hurricane Helene, the RAD generated nearly $300 million annually, drawing thousands of visitors each year to its working studios, galleries, breweries and restaurants. That steady flow of tourists supported not only artists but nearby shops, lodging and hospitality businesses.
That broader impact was recognized nationally in February, when the RAD was named Best Arts District in the US by USA Today 10BEST Readers’ Choice Awards, a ranking determined by public vote.
“Being honored by the readers of USA Today as the number-one arts district in the country means so much to our community of artists,” says Hundertmark. “It means the country recognizes us as an arts stronghold and as a resilient and determined community of artists.”
She adds, “We have worked so hard not to lose what we have built as a community over the last 30 years, and as we rebuild our studios, galleries and spaces after such devastation, to know there are people all over the country cheering for us means the world.”
For more information and updates, visit RADA-Foundation.org.
