So the big news today is that we FINALLY got the green light from the City of Asheville to begin the upfit for our mill room. It seemed we were getting caught in the snare of regulatory overload. The word mill conjured images (in the minds of city officials) of explosions caused by dust combustion. Yes, mills have caught on fire, but we are a different brand of mill-- a micro mill with top projects of 1-2 tons of flour per day (a 'small' mill can produce up to 10,000cwt of flour a day-- that means 100,000 pounds of flour(!) before being designated a 'medium-sized' mill). So yeah, we are sort of off the map. But hell, we are reinventing the map! Construction begins on Monday!!!
And a very big BIG THANK YOU goes out to architect Marni Graves and engineers, Ray Morgan and Gus Sims of Sims Group Engineers for volunteering to help us through this regulatory process.
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This is amazing to read, Jennifer. We are also learning that there may be permits required we didn't anticipate and would love to know more detail about how you worked through the bureaucracy in Asheville. Can you write more about the that? Were there zoning and use permits/issues? Did you need building permits at all? Anything you can share would be much appreciated. It might be good material for the national network we are forming, too.
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