UNC Asheville Millenial Campus
At UNC Asheville, we encourage prospective and current students not to ask “What if?” Instead, we encourage them to ask “What’s next?” We are asking the same question in regards to our Millennial Campus properties, which have the potential to strengthen the student experience inside and outside the classroom and enhance the economic development of the City of Asheville, Buncombe County, and Western North Carolina.
In April 2021, the UNC System Board of Governors approved UNC Asheville’s request to designate several parcels of University property as a Millennial Campus. These properties, many of them undeveloped, are key assets that can be leveraged to advance the evolution of the University and diversify the region’s economy.
With 85% of our students from North Carolina, and almost half of them from Western North Carolina, UNC Asheville is helping. Over 70% of our alumni currently reside and work in the state. UNC Asheville also recently created Access Asheville, a new financial aid program designed to make an exceptional, transformative education attainable for low- and middle-income families.
Other UNC System institutions have achieved great success in developing their Millennial Campus properties since the designation was established. UNC Asheville is looking to the successes of our sister institutions as inspiration for how we will move forward.
The Millennial Campus Designation
Established by the North Carolina General Assembly in 2000, the Millennial Campus designation provides UNC System institutions with the ability to strengthen the student experience inside and outside the classroom and enhance the economic development of the regions we serve.
That designation, as outlined in The Centennial Campus, the Horace Williams Campus, and the Millennial Campuses Financing Act “shall be based on an express finding by the Board of Governors that the institution desiring to create a ‘Millennial Campus’ has the administrative and fiscal capability to create and maintain such a campus and provided further, that the Board of Governors has found that the creation of the constituent institution’s or affiliated institution’s ‘Millennial Campus’ will enhance the institution’s research, teaching, and service missions as well as enhance the economic development of the region served by the institution.”
UNC Asheville South Campus and Broadway Properties
In June of 2025, UNC Asheville announced a proposed development plan for the 45-acre property known as the South Campus, which is bordered by Broadway Street and W.T. Weaver Boulevard, and the property known as the Broadway Property that is bordered by Zillicoa Street and the Reed Creek Greenway.
The two-phase project, once it is fully completed, will bring in investments of over $250 million, hundreds of jobs, and substantial increases in new sales tax revenue each year. Equally important, it will bring resources and opportunities to UNC Asheville and the region that will ensure vibrant and accessible opportunities for all.
In collaboration with Asheville City Soccer Club, the anchor of phase one of the proposed plan is a multi-purpose stadium on the South Campus that would be home to both men’s and women’s USL soccer teams and the UNC Asheville men’s and women’s Division I soccer teams. The stadium will also be designed to host multiple types of events that will draw people from across the region and state to the University and city.
Included in phase one will be mixed-use housing for UNC Asheville students, faculty and staff, and the local community, as well as a planned child care center and other amenities. These additions to Asheville will ease on-campus housing shortages and address the community’s high-demand and critical needs in multiple areas.
The plan also includes green space, consistent with the University’s commitment to balancing environmental sustainability with its need to ensure financial sustainability through vibrant student, faculty, and staff experiences. This commitment can be seen in other projects, including sheltering Chestnut Ridge during the construction of Lookout Observatory, the permaculture garden at the Sam Millar Facilities Management Complex, the partnership with the Botanical Gardens, which will soon be solidified via a long-term agreement, and the University’s donation of the land to help create the Reed Creek and Glenn’s Creek Greenways along Broadway Street and W.T. Weaver Boulevard.
Details for the Broadway Property, part of phase two of the project, are still being determined.
