NCGrowth aids Mayland’s visionary Three Peaks Enrichment Center
Kenan Institute experts helped the community college secure funding for the resource hub in its redevelopment project.
John Boyd’s vision is becoming a reality.
When a hotel and convention center complex in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, fell into disrepair, the owner donated it to Mayland Community College, the local campus serving the three counties in its name: Mitchell, Avery and Yancey.
“I like to say it was worth every penny we paid for it,” says Boyd, Mayland’s president.
That dilapidated gift is being transformed into the Three Peaks Enrichment Center, a complex that includes a boutique hotel, a 2,000-seat event space and small business center. On this day, Boyd is about to show Chancellor Lee H. Roberts and a group of guests a renovation in progress on a site with views of dramatic mountaintops above and the Toe River and Spruce Pine downtown below.
The visit is part of the chancellor’s summer tour of western North Carolina to see Carolina’s support of that region in person. The University’s most direct connections to Three Peaks are two studies done by NCGrowth, an economic development center within the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, that helped guide its development and secure funding support.
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Leading economic development
Through the Three Peaks project and others (like the Mayland Earth to Sky Park in Burnsville, North Carolina), Mayland Community College and its nonprofit Mayland Enterprise Corporation have become key players in economic development in this region of western North Carolina.
At Three Peaks, Mayland has transformed the historic Spruce Pine Elementary School, built in 1921, into the 32-room Blue Ridge Boutique Hotel, with an upscale restaurant and bar coming soon. The second building, the former Pine Bridge Coliseum, will be used to host conventions and other events. It is already home to a new YMCA exercise and recreation center, complete with a weight room and two swimming pools. The college’s cosmetology program is located there, with culinary arts and massage therapy programs and hospitality apprenticeships coming soon.
“There’s a relationship between all those and the hotel,” Boyd explains. The college’s programming boosts the region’s tourism industry by offering training to students who can then provide high-end amenities like fine dining and spa services to hotel guests. “We don’t want to compete with downtown. We want to be part of it. Everything is tied together.”
The building also houses the Mayland Small Business Center and its resource hub, offering local entrepreneurs classes and counseling as well as access to resources like computer and office equipment, meeting spaces and a studio for marketing photography.
“This is my favorite project,” says Carolyn Fryberger, associate director of economic development at NCGrowth, also on the tour. In 2019, Fryberger and NCGrowth analyst Keiley Gaston produced the 22-page feasibility study that helped secure federal Economic Development Agency funding for the resource center for entrepreneurs. The project is special to Fryberger because she grew up in Black Mountain, North Carolina, and skated at Pine Bridge when it had an ice rink.
In 2021, NCGrowth did a 39-page study to assess the demand for adding a commercial kitchen to the Three Peaks site. The report concluded that the Mayland-led enterprises like the hotel, observatory park and culinary classes created enough demand for the kitchen, which could also be the foundation for an innovative food district.
During the visit, the group toured Three Peaks Enrichment Center and Blue Ridge Boutique Hotel and learned more about Spruce Pine’s disaster recovery following Hurricane Helene. (Jeyhoun Allebaugh/University Development)
Helene disaster and recovery
The Three Peaks project took on added significance after Hurricane Helene swept through the region in September 2024, causing the Toe River to flood buildings up to their awnings all along Spruce Pine’s main street and washing away the historic Spruce Pine Footbridge. The Blue Ridge hotel housed first responders, and the event space became a distribution center for supplies for the hard-hit region.
“We got hit hard, but we’re getting up,” says Allen Cook, who once led the Mayland Small Business Center and is now the Mitchell County manager. “Our people are resilient, and their independent spirit is strong. But we’re also fragile. The next two or three years can set us back.”
The Three Peaks center, with its emphasis on economic development, tourism and jobs, will be a key part of the recovery. A High Country Council of Governments economic impact analysis done before the project estimated that it would support 90 permanent full-time equivalent positions and generate nearly $14 million in economic output each year in Mitchell County or $74.4 million over five years.
“There’s just nothing like this in the three counties,” Boyd tells the tour group. “They see it as an economic boon.”
