The Clock Tower at Unity Future Park

I originally published this article elsewhere on March 21, 2022. I have seen the City of Asheville (COA) Pack Square Vision Document project manager request for proposal responses. These are architects and I’m sure they will do their part.

I revised this article again after the COA Pack Square Vision Project was approved September 14, 2023.

One of the ideas in the Pack Squre Visioning Project is the Municipal Building Move and Repurpose initiative (MBMR); which is where APD and AFD are currently headquartered. I’m not exactly opposed to the MBMR idea; if there was a cogent strategy. In 2006 I proposed the building my family once owned be repurposed as the WNC Heritage Museum; and most certainly with a diverse and inclusive definition of heritage and peoples.

Also, I was at the meeting where MBMR was introduced by two women. But why now? Why not launch MBMR in 2024 to make sure it gets done as 10–20 years from now means a lot fewer alternate sites. To get a budget of about $100 million, was a study completed? Otherwise, the MBMR study is needed now.

This is the Letter to the Editor I had published in the Mountain Xpress January 11, 2023. MX changed the title which should have been The Clock Tower at Unity Future Park:

The Clock Tower at Unity Future Park LTTE

If Asheville and Buncombe citizens are not aware already, the Pack Square Plaza Visioning Project is more or less ending initiate phase this month. The Design Workshop for Pack Square Plaza is Friday January 13, 2023: https://www.ashevillenc.gov/projects/pack-square-plaza-visioning-and-improvements/. The draft Vision Document was approved September 14, 2023.

First, in my opinion, it is no longer necessary for the city land in front of city hall and the courthouse — and especially not the Pack Square site where the Vance Monument stood — to be named after George Pack any longer. The name I would like to see the people of Asheville and Buncombe to consider is Unity Future Park and Unity Future Square. I think a clock tower can go where the Vance Monument is… and the obelisk court challenge needs to conclude as a result of whatever this visioning process leads to.

I came up with the name Unity Future a year ago. Since then, I learned Greenville, SC developed their Unity Park and opened it last year: https://unityparkgreenville.com/1854/About-the-Park. It’s a big deal for Greenville. The background in the Greenville case is relevant and the answer to why use the word unity is apparent. It’s important to go over how the term unity was introduced with the original Vance Monument dedication and then at the rededication just in 2015.

I don’t really care if someone comes up with a better name than Unity Future. Some may insist on honoring a public figure versus using a concept like ‘unity + future’. I think renaming this ‘public commons’ area is important at the cognitive level as to what Asheville and Buncombe are to be about for the rest of the 21st Century. Then, ideally at least, the more tangible transformations many are seeking — versus ‘just more visioning’ — may fall in place more readily.

“The Vance Monument had no Confederacy symbols and the demolition was a pointless waste of taxpayer funds.” That’s a paraphrase synthesizing several local comments on the obelisk demolition and related legal case. There are many things I am not in unison about and yet I am totally onboard with defying such ethics as what that darned obelisk was really about.

Finally, it is deserved to add that for me Unity Future is not just the name of a park and a possible clock tower.

I have more details. This is just a quick LTTE.

Also, I personally invite Citizens with Disabilities (CWDs) of all ages to also participate in this and other strategy work… and not just as to the continued meager ADA assurances from City of Asheville; as exampled in the Pack Square Plaza Visioning Project here:

“ADA access needs for the raised lawn on the northeast end of the square”.

That’s not exactly an equity-based outreach headline directed to the many CWDs residing in Asheville and Buncombe County.

Happy New Year!

Grant Millin is a Strategy Innovator and long-time Asheville resident

This is the orginal March 21, 2022 article:

Asheville’s Unity Future Square, Monument, and Digital Placemaking Program… and more

I was attacked online for sharing my following thoughts about renaming Pack Square Park. I think the former site of the Vance Monument would be ideal for a monument to WNC African-Americans and all they’ve been through. Whoever you are as a Asheville citizen, I encourage you to feel free as an American to write down your thoughts about this center of Asheville and Buncombe’s public forum.

George Pack and Zebuloun Vance seem to have formed one version of a unity into the future vision back in 1897. In 2015 when the Vance Monument was rededicated the concept of unity came up again.

If Asheville folks want to rename Pack Square Park for an individual, that may come up. I suggest using concepts from our national strategy, the Preamble to the US Constitution, as to unity and what needs to fill out the future as best we can alongside out national motto: Out of Many, One (E Pluribus Unum) and enshrine those ideals hear in Asheville as we work the challenges, solutions, and outcomes of the remainder of the 21st Century as a team.

The COA Vance Monument Task Force mentioned the Cherokee. COA likes to use the acronym BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color), but my understanding is there is little outreach to the Cherokee. The Asheville Native American population is .5 percent. I have a concept for a patriotic multicultural art piece where the Cherokee language would be ideally presented. No, I do not have imagery or a prototype at this point.

I see many, many roadblocks to innovation in Asheville. But that’s part of why I am running for council.

I will continue to update this article and make other posts on my Medium channel on this and other Asheville issues.

“True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.” — MLK

This commentary is a short version of a longer plan outline. Please contact me to discuss this plan.

There would be tension for some if after all the information on Zebulon Vance’s role in the Confederacy and as a slave owner revealed anew in recent years, his monument still stood in Downtown Asheville. And yet right now most tourists and many locals know nothing about this soon to be removed obelisk.

Destroying the Vance Monument obelisk is a symbolic way to resolve the harm it represented. But what’s next? This is why reparations deserve study at least. When people talk about the Anti-Racism Future, being real about the history of structural racism is integral to why would we do other than ‘moving on’ in Asheville and America with the ‘same old, same old’ ways after a race challenge or other challenge to being a “more perfect Union” appears.

New city council member Sandra Kilgore provides important contrast to the views of those on the Vance Monument Task Force and those who crafted the related City of Asheville (COA) Vance Monument resolution. Her January 31 Mountain Xpress commentary “Can repurposing the Vance Monument help heal the divide in Asheville?” is worth reading.

The task force recommendations are not conclusive and repurposing / redesign solutions are just now emerging. And COA failed to reveal the removal price tag in a timely manner.

By the way, I am not fighting for this obelisk to stay in place. I am simply adding more to what folks like Sandra are introducing from their perspectives for community contemplation.

Sandra suggests renaming this obelisk Unity Tower. I think removing the statues of confederates like Zebulon Vance and Jefferson Davis from the US Capitol is a priority. Eradicating use of the confederate flag in America is a priority. But as MLK talked about ‘edifices’ in his 1967 “Beyond Vietnam” speech, the edifices of structural sin are not just about historical markers and flags: it’s about how to use free will from today forward to form a new and renewing system. A system such as making our relatively short but high impact national strategy seen in the Preamble to the US Constitution work better for more of us is a priority.

If we remove the Vance obelisk and COA delivers on real world transformation in partnership with the county, state, and Federal levels — as well as the rest of civil society — then something major happened along with moving a giant obelisk elsewhere.

Whatever happens to the obelisk I propose renaming Pack Square as Unity Future Square. I cover why in the Unity Future plan outline I look forward to sharing. I also get into everything else the Unity Future program will be about.

In the full length Unity Future outline I discuss a digital kiosk, a website, and a smartphone app that tells a new story of our ‘Unity Future’ while not hiding our past sins. I also cover low cost / high impact. changes to what is now called Pack Square as to its architecture. The words “Pack Square” are carved into the semicircle bench / wall in front of the obelisk twice. That now obsolete lettering can be replaced with the words “change” and “peace” in brass inlay.

In 1980 Asheville’s African-American families and neighborhoods were having a different experience.

Changing the name of this central public commons currently known as Pack Square can also be part of COA finally establishing eminent domain of the site, if property ownership is still unknown.

Like George Pack in the 1800s, Roger McGuire moved to Asheville and started changing downtown the same year, 1980, as my family. The stone work reading “Roger McGuire Green” in what is now called Pack Square Park can be changed similarly to “Unity Future Park”.

It is alarming that COA and our community doesn’t have a platform to facilitate solutions like this one. I have experienced a few negative COA civic engagement related issues recently. Not getting involved at this time is a bad idea.

Definitely expect an involved civic engagement phase on ‘Unity Future’; especially as to what the square should be renamed and any physical or digital content. I am merely laying out some preliminary options here. I agree mock ups are needed with several options.

Grant Millin is a Strategy Innovator and has been a citizen of Asheville for over 20 years.