More than a year after Mission Hospital announced that it planned to demolish its St. Joseph’s Hospital, work is set to begin to tear down the century-old facility.
Permits have been filed and are pending with the city of Asheville, and staff have been told that they will no longer be able to park at the St. Joseph facility beginning Friday.
The permits call for a “complete demolition” of the facility, according to plans filed with the city.
Last week, Mission CEO Greg Lowe told staff in a message that the parking lot is being permanently closed as part of upcoming “remediation” plans.
St. Joseph’s Hospital was once one of the largest hospitals in western North Carolina, but its services have increasingly been phased out and parts of its campus have fallen into disrepair. Its problems only grew in the wake of Tropical Storm Helene, which devastated the region.
Mission Hospital did not respond to requests to comment on this story.
In December 2024, Mission spokesperson Nancy Lindell told Asheville Watchdog that Helen had “exacerbated” the deteriorating condition of the facility.
“The only real option for that campus is its eventual demolition,” Lindell told The Watchdog at the time.
The origins of Saint Joseph’s go back to Nov. 23, 1900, when a group of nuns from the Sisters of Mercy arrived in Asheville and opened an 18-bed tuberculosis sanitarium on the corner of French Broad and Patton avenues.
Almost 100 years later it had grown into a 338-bed facility. In 1996, Saint Joseph’s Hospital began an organizational partnership with Memorial Mission Medical Center to form Mission Hospital. Two years later, Mission bought Saint Joseph’s from the Sisters of Mercy for $90 million.
When Nashville-based HCA Healthcare purchased Mission Hospital in 2019, it agreed not to shut down any part of the Saint Joseph’s site for two years, according to the asset purchase agreement.
But the opening of Mission Hospital’s North Tower in 2019 was at least in part motivated by an awareness that Saint Joseph’s would have to be decommissioned in the near future.
Dr. Scott Joslin, former head of the Asheville Specialty Hospital, located on the St. Joseph’s campus, previously told The Watchdog that the facility had a range of problems including water leaks and electrical issues. As a result, the hospital was becoming too expensive to maintain and was reaching the end of its useful life, Joslin said.
A Mission Hospital map shows the St. Joseph Hospital campus (B). Its address is 428 Biltmore Ave.
What do the permits say?
Since the beginning of the year, Mission Hospital has applied for two permits with the city of Asheville for work on the Saint Joseph Hospital campus.
The city has approved a permit for the complete demolition of “all buildings and foundations” at the Saint Joseph Hospital complex located at 428 Biltmore Avenue.
The application also states that the hospital will perform “selective demolition” of the pedestrian bridge spanning Biltmore Avenue. The bridge currently connects the Saint Joseph campus with Mission Hospital’s medical offices.
The permit also states that the hospital intends to carry out selective demolition of some features including “paving, parking surfaces, hardscape, landscape and irrigation.”
While the city has approved the permit, it still needs additional approval from the Municipal Sewerage District, according to city spokesperson Kim Miller.
The second permit for commercial site works is on hold pending revision, Miller said.
In December, the city issued a permit for interior demolition at the Saint Joseph campus. That permit allowed for a “total stripout” of four floors of the building, including internal demolition of plumbing, electrical and asbestos removal. However, that permit needs to be closed out as the scope of the work has changed, Miller said.
While the new permit applications do not indicate when the demolition is set to begin, parking changes for staff will start almost immediately. Beginning Friday, staff will have access only to two levels of the five-story Biltmore parking deck, a surface lot and at the Dogwood lot located at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College.
Employees will need to take a shuttle from the Dogwood lot to the hospital. A new surface parking lot will be built on the Saint Joseph’s campus as part of the remediation, according to a Mission Hospital newsletter.
Asheville Watchdog welcomes thoughtful reader comments on this story, which has been republished on our Facebook page. Please submit your comments there.
Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Ted Clifford is The Watchdog’s investigative reporter focusing on healthcare. He can be reached via email at tclifford@avlwatchdog.org. The Watchdog’s local reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.
Related