Pisgah Health Creates "Beautiful" Event Space. But What Does It Have to Do with Wellness?
Pisgah Health Foundation, tasked with improving public health, spent nearly $600,000 to renovate a Brevard bank building while its contributions to local nonprofits dwindled dramatically.
BREVARD — Shiela Jarvis stood on an interior balcony at the newly renovated Trust Center last week and looked out over its “Grand Ballroom.”
Light from the room’s tall windows reflected off glossy, synthetic-wood floors. Rustic-themed paintings hung on exposed brick walls and brass chandeliers from ceilings two stories high.
Her impression?
“I think it’s beautiful,” said Jarvis, interim director of the Pisgah Health Foundation, which completed the two-year restoration of the Center in November.
Yes, it is, many community leaders agreed, even “gorgeous” or “stunning.”
And the renovation is especially welcome, several of them said, because it revived one of the most prominent and architecturally distinguished buildings in Transylvania County, a century-old former bank on West Main Street that has stood vacant for 16 years.
But with this praise come questions, the main one being this: Is creating an opulent event center a good use of funds for an organization entrusted to tackle public health needs, including a critical lack of access to mental health care and stable housing?
Pisgah Health, formerly the Transylvania Regional Hospital Foundation, received its new name, its wellness-promoting assignment and a pledge of $15 million in funding over three years with the 2019 sale of nonprofit Mission Health — the hospital’s previous owner — to industry giant HCA Healthcare Inc.
The restoration project was launched in 2021 with the aim of creating offices for its then-growing staff and a gathering space for nonprofits and the public. And last week Jarvis, now one of only two Pisgah employees, said events at the Center will build “social cohesion,” a key component of public health.
But the Foundation’s spending of nearly $600,000 on the building came as its annual total of “grants and contributions” to local organizations shrank to $225,000 in 2022, the same year it made the last of three $1 million payments to a for-profit corporation for the controversial Blue Zones Project, according to its most recent publicly available tax return.
The long-term benefits of the restoration will accrue not to Pisgah but to building owner John Nichols, who is renting it out under the terms of a lease that, unless it is renewed, will expire in 2026.
Work on the project began only two years after the Foundation had moved into previously donated and newly renovated offices a few blocks from the Center, and the Ballroom will serve as one more gathering place in a county rich with such facilities, some available to nonprofits for a fraction of its costs.
Given such factors, “it’s hard to understand how this large investment in a building as an office and potential venue fits in with (the Foundation’s) mission,” Page Lemel, former Transylvania county commissioner and current board chairman of the county’s Department of Social Services, wrote in an email.
“I am confident this money could have been invested in many of our nonprofits and had far more direct and immediate impact on the needs in our community.”
The Original Vision
The Trust Center building first opened in 1925 and went on to serve as the home of several banks, the last of which closed in 2008, according to a Transylvania Times article by a historical librarian at the Transylvania Public Library.
It features “yellow Flemish bond brick with limestone detailing (and) heroic Tuscan columns,” according to a 1998 book, Transylvania: The Architectural History of a Mountain County, which called the structure “one of the most handsome historic commercial buildings in Brevard.”
Along with the large main space, the completed Trust Center houses an “Executive Suite,” a second-floor conference room offering seating for 25 and a view of the Ballroom through a glass wall.
Near the rear of the first floor, a steel-doored former vault has been repurposed as a coat room and three offices have been built around a second, smaller conference space.
This work fulfilled one of the project’s goals — to “resurrect” the venerable building — listed by the Foundation’s former executive director, Lex Green, when he announced plans for the renovation in 2021. And in a recent interview, he explained how he imagined the Center fitting into the organization’s future, while also touting its achievements under his leadership.
In the first two years after the HCA sale, the group awarded a total of more than $5.5 million in grants to regional organizations, spending that included $1 million to address the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a 2021 report from the Foundation that Green provided, Relentless for Western North Carolina.
Green said he also secured several million dollars in endowments for Foundation’s ongoing programs, including Camp Bluebird, which hosts adult cancer survivors, and the Mission Belles nursing scholarship fund.
Seeking to maintain the Foundation’s viability in anticipation of the loss of the annual $5 million in proceeds of the Mission sale, Green said, he hired a half-dozen employees to ramp up new programs and reestablish Pisgah as a major fundraising organization, just as it had been when it operated as the Hospital Foundation.
The staff was outgrowing its previous office at the Keeley House on West Jordan Street (now being offered for rent at $2,500 a month), and the original plans for the Center included six offices.
The second-floor conference room would, similarly, be needed for meetings of the expanded board he anticipated, he said. He planned for what is now the Ballroom to serve as a venue for community events and a hub of activities offered to the Foundation’s roster of “health insiders.”
Comparing them to members of a chamber of commerce, he said, these insiders would be able to access wellness services and provide an ongoing source of funding.
“The building was not just some building we wanted to renovate,” he said, but was viewed as “a platform for the next stage of the Health Foundation.”
Honoring the Lease
Did the Foundation’s Board of Directors buy in? Pisgah’s past and current leaders wouldn’t really say.
Green declined to comment on the reasons for his sudden resignation in September of 2022. So did current Board Chair Jeremy Purcell and, in an interview last year, his predecessor, Cathleen Blanchard.
Yes, Purcell wrote in an emailed response to questions from NewsBeat, continued fundraising is “vital” for the Foundation to “remain viable.”
But he also pointed out that this will be more difficult than during the organization’s days as a hospital foundation because of HCA’s for-profit status and the lack of concrete goals such as building a new emergency room at Transylvania Regional, for which the old foundation raised $7 million in 2017.
“We no longer have a hospital to fundraise for,” he wrote.
Blanchard said last year that Green was the main advocate of both the Blue Zones Project and the agreement with Nichols.
Though acknowledging the Board voted to approve the lease, “that was brought to us by Lex,” she said. “He and John Nichols had had a conversation about the bank building as an anchor and what it could provide to our community.”
She also said then that the Board was reexamining the value of the renovation, partly because of the affect of Covid-19 on the project, which documents submitted to the city of Brevard show was originally expected to cost $350,000.
Though the impact of the pandemic had been well-documented by the time the board committed to the renovation in August of 2021, she blamed it for unforeseen costs and delays.
Pisgah “entered into the lease for the building in a different environment for the Foundation and, frankly, for the world, pre-Covid,” Purcell added in an email. “Hindsight is always 20/20, however we chose to honor the terms of the lease.”
Those terms include an expiration date of 2026 and an option to renew, he wrote. He declined to share the amount of the monthly rent payment because, along with Nichols, he wrote, the Foundation is “only one party” to the lease. He also said the nearly $600,000 Pisgah spent on the renovation factors in a “tenant improvement allowance” from Nichols, who did not return calls from NewsBeat seeking comment.
Did the money and energy devoted to the project distract the Foundation from its main, health-promoting goal?
Purcell didn’t answer directly, but that was the implication of one of his responses.
With the completion of the Center, he wrote, “we can move our focus to identifying and working to support the vast needs of the community.”
Dwindling Contributions
But he also wrote that support for wellness-promoting nonprofits continued during the renovation, providing a long list of local organizations that secured funding from Dogwood Health Trust, a regional foundation that received about $1.5 billion from the proceeds of the Mission sale.
Dogwood also distributed a total of $314,000 to Pisgah in 2022, including $200,000 for a “home repair initiative,” according to Communications Specialist Amy Holcombe.
Though neither she nor Purcell would provide detailed information about Dogwood’s 2023 grants to Pisgah, Purcell wrote that their total sum increased that year. And some of the Dogwood money, he wrote, has been distributed by Pisgah in “pass-through grants.”
One $50,000 pass-through went to Transylvania Habitat for Humanity, a donation that allowed it to launch a “critical repair” program in 2023 that greatly increased the number of residents the organization served, said Executive Director Angie Hunter.
That same year, Pisgah provided more than $100,000 in “seed money” to launch SparkPoint, a local nonprofit carrying on the work of Blue Zones, said Executive Director Sarah Hankey, who said the Foundation is also providing an in-kind donation of an office at the Center.
But leaders of other local nonprofits that had previously received grants from Pisgah said they later faced discouragement when seeking its funding.
“I can’t remember whether it was last year or the year before, but it’s been in the last two years that we asked,” said Emily Lowery, executive director of The Haven long-term homeless shelter in Brevard. “And there were no opportunities as I understood it.”
“We were told their grants were closed,” said Shelly Webb, executive director of the Sharing House crisis-assistance organization. “They did not give us a reason. I just assumed they were financially strapped with the renovation of the Trust building.”
This trend of decreased funding — at least in the form of direct grants from Pisgah — is reflected in the Foundation’s tax returns.
In 2021, the last year the Foundation received proceeds from the sale, it collected $6.1 million in revenue, while its total of “grants and contributions” to local organizations fell to $785,000.
The 2021 return also shows that its $124,000 payment to the Center project’s contractor was more than twice that of any individual grant to a regional nonprofit.
The return covering 2022, which included eight months Green’s tenure, shows Pisgah’s total revenue dropped to $1.54 million that year. And of the $225,000 in grants the Foundation’s Board awarded, only three went to organizations in Transylvania for a total amount of less than $32,000.
Housing and a Park
Webb commented on Pisgah’s commitment to investing in the Center indirectly when she was asked about it last year, writing that “we look forward to a more clearly stated vision of priorities for initiatives funded by Pisgah Health,”
She still feels the same way, she said, but added she now sees more signs it’s happening.
Pisgah recently provided the organization with a $18,750 pass-through grant from Dogwood to pay for “food pantry resources” over the next two years, Purcell wrote.
And when Webb attended the Nov. 30 grand opening of the Center, she said Purcell shared the organization’s upcoming plans to support the construction of affordable housing, which “really piqued my interest . . . because that is an area where I think Pisgah Health Foundation could make a significant impact.”
Pisgah is still researching how it can address the county’s housing needs, Purcell wrote, but one possible approach has been modeled by another of the regional “legacy foundations” created after the Mission sale, Marion-based Gateway Wellness Foundation, which is developing low-cost units with the help of money from a range of nonprofits.
The Brevard/Transylvania Housing Coalition has also been marshaling nonprofit resources to address this issue, and Jarvis has begun attending its meetings, Webb said.
Another of the organization’s priorities, Purcell wrote, is working with the city of Brevard to build a park on 11 acres the Foundation owns near Transylvania Regional Hospital.
The project is contingent on an engineer’s study of the suitability of the site, Brevard Mayor Maureen Copelof said, but early plans call for the city to use part of the property as a trail head for the regional Ecusta Trail, while the Foundation would build a playground and adult exercise stations on the remaining portion.
“Our role is to further support our mission to enhance health and wellness opportunities for this community,” Purcell wrote of the project.
Does Brevard Need a Grand Ballroom?
How will the Center fit into this larger goal?
It’s certainly suitable for some community-building nonprofit events, said Heart of Brevard president Lucy Clark, who owns an art gallery on West Main. Though she couldn’t speak for the whole board, she said, she could see the Ballroom could serving as “an amazing venue” for the group’s annual art festival.
“Just as a community member and someone working downtown, it’s so wonderful to have life in that building,” she said. “It really is beautiful.”
Its potential to generate revenue for the Foundation, meanwhile, is reflected in a price list prepared by Shay & Company, an Asheville firm Pisgah hired to manage the venue in exchange for a percentage of the proceeds.
Shay is charging $2,750 for weddings and other private events at the Center, while the daily rental for corporate gatherings is $750 on weekdays and $1,250 on weekends.
The corresponding rates for nonprofits are lower, $550 and $950, and future discounts could be offered on a “case-by-case basis and with approval from the Board,” the company’s owner, Shay Brown, wrote in an email.
Still, such costs will limit the Trust Center’s usefulness for cash-strapped charities, several of their leaders said.
The Haven has no need for its conference room or Ballroom, said Lowery, who added that when she saw the building’s luxurious interior on a recent visit she thought of how the funds could have been used to provide permanent accommodations for her homeless guests.
“My mind always goes to housing and affordable housing, so you know where my mind is going to go when I look at anything like that,” she said.
Habitat might rent the Ballroom for an upcoming fundraiser marking the organization’s 40th anniversary, Hunter said, but for more routine meetings “we won’t be able to pay that,” she said of the listed prices.
Judging from photos she had seen, she said, “it’s a very nice facility and we typically don’t use that nice of a facility.”
The Rogow Room at the Transylvania County Library can be rented by nonprofits for $40 per hour on weekdays and $60 on weekends. The spacious community room at the city of Brevard’s Mary C. Jenkins Community and Cultural Center, which opened in 2022, is available to nonprofits for $25 per hour, along with a $100 down payment.
And the Brevard Music Center “has been providing both low-cost and free meeting spaces for local nonprofits for years,” wrote former President Mark Weinstein.
“Additionally, I am unsure exactly how (the Center) project fits in with improving the health of our community,” he wrote. “We have so many directly health-related issues in Transylvania County that most probably come before additional, new, beautiful and expensive meeting and party space.”
“Wasted” Opportunity?
Current and former elected officials said Pisgah carries a heightened responsibility to focus on its core mission because of both the source of its funding and the sums it still controls — $14.3 million in total assets at the end of 2022, according to its tax returns, an amount that dwarfed the holdings of even well-heeled local groups such as Lake Toxaway Charities.
Brevard Mayor Pro Tem Gary Daniel pointed out that Pisgah received large sums from the sale of facilities built with public support.
“If you consider that money the community’s money, it doesn’t make sense,” he said of the investment in the Center. “I don’t see how it’s a benefit to the community at large.”
And referring to the well-documented decline in the quality of care at regional hospitals since they were acquired by HCA, the money generated for charitable purposes has turned out to be “the single, only redeeming factor of this sale,” said Mike Hawkins, who served as chair of the County Commission at the time of the transaction.
Back then, he harbored reservations about the deal but took “solace” that “the county would be under the umbrella of a couple of philanthropic organizations that could be transformational in our community,” he said, referring to both Dogwood and Pisgah.
Though he still holds out hope for such a dramatic impact, “it hasn’t happened yet,” he said. “My thought on this is, ‘God, what a waste.’ ”
Email: brevardnewsbeat@gmail.com
I hope that Pisgah Foundation responds loudly and broadly to this piece, because for an organization whose website touts "Gold Transparency 23" and "Candid", this foundation's finances, funding criteria, values, and strategic goals are as clear as mud. Surely Board members will be eager to clarify what is going on, and not rely on the "Communications Specialist" to enlighten the community.
Refuse to provide information about Dogwood's 2023 grants to Pisgah? Why? Being unable to say what the Center's monthly rent is because "other parties" are on the lease? Why? What "other parties"? Is that a secret also? What the hell are "health insiders" who will access "wellness services" and provide funding? Is Pisgah Foundation about to offer "wellness" concierage services? Shiela Jarvis' hopes that the Center will promote "social cohesion" seem far-fetched, given a $950/day week-end rental fee to the non-profits while cartering to the paying "health insiders." I guess we unwashed are "health outsiders".
Maybe this Board fell under the spell of a consultant speaking gobbly gook, like the hired hands bought in from HCA to convince our former hospital board that their only option was to sell themselves to HCA in an uncontested bid.
I also hope to learn the rationale behind who gets how much of the Foundation's revenue, and how the undistributed money is invested. A foundation only has to distribute 5% of its assets per year, which Pisgah Foundation has done. Their IRS Form 990 shows total 2022 assets of $14 million. Investment income was $146,000, just over 1% of assets. Is that a little low, when my money markets are paying close to 5%? Or do they have assets in the form of real estate or other investments?
I'm sure there is a reasonable explanation to all of this. I look forward to the Board's response and to correcting my misunderstandings.
How could the Board of Pisgah Foundation actually think this would be a good use of funds? So disappointing that they would believe this would contribute to a more healthy community. What a disgrace!