Second Gear, an outdoor gear shop in Asheville, North Carolina. The store's previous building on the riverfront was destroyed during Hurricane Helene. (Photo: Courtesy of Russ Towers/Second Gear)
After Hurricane Helene left his Asheville store beyond repair, Russ Towers had a plan — and the good fortune — to relocate.
Second Gear, his outdoor gear shop, was almost entirely submerged at the peak of the storm’s flooding. When the waters receded, the roof of the Riverside Drive building had collapsed.
A month later, he had closed on a new lease across the river, in the Westgate Shopping Center. And by early December, Second Gear’s doors were open again.
“I had some people that I didn’t want to lose,” Towers said. “I didn’t want to wait until spring.”
The quick pivot came with a price tag. Towers and his co-owners made loans to the business to get the new location off the ground. They were aided by a GoFundMe that exceeded their expectations, raising more than $40,000. Helene has cost them about $700,000 in total, Towers estimates.
Second Gear isn’t alone in carrying new financial burdens. Dr. Carly Brown, who runs the affordable primary care clinic Ashewell Medical Group, said repairs to the practice’s 2,300 square-foot office would cost hundreds of thousands. And Jennifer and Jon Hartman, owners of the Marion restaurant J. Hartman’s, have taken on debt to finance new equipment.
All three have now reopened — thanks to a combination of saved capital and community fundraising. Direct aid from the government, though, has been hard to come by.
The Hartmans received a grant through a county chamber program, but their restaurant and Brown’s clinic haven’t qualified for the biggest programs. Second Gear has received about $55,000 across four grants, including from the private sector.
“It helps, but it doesn’t even come close to covering our loss,” Towers said.
Lawmakers leading North Carolina’s Helene recovery have created loan programs for businesses, but have so far resisted the idea of providing wide-ranging grants that they argue could be distributed irresponsibly.
Business and industry leaders are continuing to push for more relief. Many other businesses, they say, haven’t been able to reopen so quickly — and for them, the next few months will be a crossroads.
“They’re just trying to find other ways to survive,” said Lynn Minges, president and CEO of the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association. “There’s been a little relief here, a little of nonprofits helping a little bit along the way. But they really need some significant support in order to sustain.”
General Assembly has opted to support loans over grants. Many businesses don’t want them
Brown, who runs the Asheville clinic, opened a new line of credit and expanded another to finance the office’s move. She’s been working on applying for a loan from the Small Business Administration, too, but she has reservations.
“I’m very, very hesitant to take it, because they’ll put a lien on my property if I do,” Brown said.
The loan in question would feature a 30-year term, at a 4% interest rate — a “generous” offer, she said. But there’s no guarantee that Asheville’s River Arts District, where the old office is located, ever makes a full recovery.
“I don’t know that that area will come back,” Brown said. “I don’t want to throw good money after bad.”
In addition to the SBA’s federal loans, businesses in the mountains have been offered new state loans created by the legislature and the private sector. But many are shying away from those as well, because they’re still paying off pandemic-era loans and are already too leveraged.
“We were aggressively paying on our COVID loan,” said Towers. “We were trying to pay it off within 10 years.”
Business advocates and Democratic officials have repeatedly pushed for the state to create grants for businesses — or at least make the loans forgivable.
Republicans have been wary of doing so. One top lawmaker said earlier this month that he wanted to avoid major companies — “the Walmarts or the Family Dollars” — from taking advantage of them.
Grants would be “essential” to keeping businesses afloat, a spokesperson for the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce said in an email. There was still a “large gap” between the damage absorbed by businesses and how much grant money was available, vice president of communications Erin Leonard said.
The city chamber has launched a survey about Helene recovery, asking business owners to “help inform decision-makers at the local, state and federal levels.”
Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, has turned to the private sector to help fund grant programs. A $35 million program is providing grants to businesses that make $2.5 million or less annually, a higher threshold than the $1 million annual cap for earlier grants.
The North Carolina Restaurant & Lodging Association’s foundation also established a grant program to directly pay employees. To date, more than 1,800 hospitality workers have received pay through the $740,000 fund.
“I was super thankful for that,” said Hartman, whose restaurant workers were able to take advantage of the fund. “I was looking for anything and everything, how to get them some financial assistance while we were down.”
What’s next for Helene aid and businesses seeking further help?
Republican lawmakers have in recent weeks signaled that grants, or forgivable loans, could be on the table going forward.
The latest package for Helene relief, currently in the House, proposes a roundabout grant program — sending money to local governments, who can use it to repair “infrastructure serving one or more small businesses.” But it does not propose allocating money to businesses directly.
It’s still unclear how quickly lawmakers will move to pass that package. The Senate leader has been mum on his plans, and winter weather set the process back another week.
“I’m not sure how much longer these businesses can survive,” said Minges, the head of the Restaurant and Lodging Association. “They have debt already, loans that they’re not able to pay back. They’re just getting further and further behind. It is concerning.”
Business owners are keeping an eye on both Jones Street and Washington. But some, like the Hartmans, are keeping their heads down and expectations in check.
“We had to just kind of stay in our own bubble,” said Hartman, who added that the state’s response was “a touchy subject” for some. “And realize that we can’t rely on or wait around for help that may or may not be coming from anywhere.”
Still, frustrations remain. Brown pointed to her clinic’s history — a successful, frontline medical practice that served as a testing site for Asheville during the pandemic. If she couldn’t easily access the aid she needed, could anyone?
“One thing that feels very real for us here is to feel like we’re kind of pawns in the political process,” Brown said. “We do feel like the local politicians are really trying. But it does seem like we’re wrapped in this bubble of federal issues, on top of state issues, on top of local issues. It just feels hard.”