Downtown Hendersonville Opportunity Fund: Hendersonville

2025 Main Street Award: Economic Vitality

Best Business Retention, Expansion, or Recruitment Effort

• Dogwood Health Trust

• Mountain BizWorks

• City of Hendersonville

• Black Wall Street AVL

• Blue Ridge Community College Small Business Center
  

Watch The Award Video

The Downtown Hendersonville Opportunity Fund exemplifies innovation, collaboration, and a deep commitment to small business resilience. It was born from a vision: to strengthen the small business ecosystem and remove barriers for entrepreneurs in a rapidly evolving community. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and a surging real estate market, the City of Hendersonville took bold action to ensure that downtown remained a place where small businesses could thrive.

The key partners in this project worked together to launch a comprehensive initiative combining access to capital, training and technical assistance, support for physical space, and targeted outreach and marketing to retain, sustain and recruit small businesses and entrepreneurs for downtown Hendersonville.

This initiative secured a $400,000 grant from Dogwood Health Trust; it invested $360,000 of the grant into a revolving loan fund with Mountain BizWorks and directed $40,000 toward training and technical assistance for small businesses and entrepreneurs with partners Black Wall Street AVL (say the letters, AVL) and Blue Ridge Community College's Small Business Center.

The impact in less than a year have been tremendous: One-point-two million dollars invested in downtown businesses, four loans closed including a landmark real estate purchase by a women-owned business retaining 16 jobs and creating four new ones, twelve entrepreneurs trained in a business cohort, seventy-eight coaching clients supported with over 270 hours of one-on-one assistance, ten businesses received individualized marketing support, eighteen businesses featured in professional video promotions and fourteen networking events hosted, fostering inclusive engagement and new business relationships.

This project not only retained and expanded existing businesses – it cultivated a new generation of entrepreneurs. It preserved the authenticity of downtown Hendersonville while building a more equitable and resilient economy.

By investing in people, places and partnership, the City of Hendersonville has ensured that downtown remains a vibrant, welcoming destination for all. This initiative is a model for how small towns can lead with vision, equity, and impact.