June 21, 2019. ASHEVILLE — “Synergy” is a word that comes to Gar Ragland’s mind often as he talks about his proposed project, tentatively named AVL-Vinyl.
Ragland, a North Carolina-born music producer, president and CEO of NewSong music, and the Board Chair of the Asheville Area Arts Council, plans to build a vinyl pressing plant in the Asheville Citizen Times building, taking over nearly 10,000 square feet of the ground floor.
The Asheville Citizen Times newspaper staff moved back to the second floor of the historic building this week.
“We aspire to be one of the country’s leading manufacturers of high-quality vinyl,” Ragland said. “And as we started to put that model together, we realized that Asheville offers a special, unique opportunity, driven by both the homegrown love of music and craft here — as well as the 12 million tourists who come here seeking that here in our town.”
Informed by the city’s ethos, Ragland saw an opportunity to create something more than “just” a manufacturing facility, he said: an immersive music experience, part record plant, part independent record store, part music cafe and bar, where people can listen to and buy records, sip coffee and craft cocktails and eat world-class food.
