The Asheville Downtown Improvement District is a North Carolina Municipal Service District that enhances Asheville's Downtown core through four core service areas: the Ambassador Program, Cleaning and Maintenance, Public Realm Management, and Business Support. We work alongside the City of Asheville and local stakeholders to keep Downtown safe, welcoming, and vibrant.

ADID is managed through a partnership with the Asheville Downtown Association, the Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce, and Nexstreet, an industry leader in special improvement district operations, which is how we are able to deliver exceptional services and foster community growth.

Our team brings together diverse backgrounds in community engagement, urban planning, and economic development. Our Leadership staff have experiences working for similar place management organizations across the country. We work collaboratively with local businesses, residents, and community partners to ensure that Downtown Asheville remains a safe, welcoming, and dynamic space for everyone.

These are two separate organizations with distinct structures, funding, board of directors, and purposes, though they share staff and office infrastructure and work closely together.

The Asheville Downtown Association is a membership organization that has championed Downtown Asheville since 1987. It serves businesses, creatives, residents, and community partners through advocacy, programming, and events. Membership is voluntary and fee-based, and open to anyone who wants to support Downtown.

The Asheville Downtown Improvement District is a Municipal Service District created by the City of Asheville and authorized by North Carolina law. It is funded through a mandatory assessment on properties within the district boundary and governed by a Board of Directors representative of the diverse communities of Downtown and appointed through a public process. Its focus is on delivering clean, safe, and place management services within the district.

While ADA membership is a choice, the ADID assessment is not. If your property falls within the district boundary, you are automatically subject to the assessment unless your property is exempt. Exempt properties include those owned by government entities, nonprofits, and faith-based organizations.

When the Asheville Downtown Improvement District was established, it made sense to house its operations within the Asheville Downtown Association rather than build an entirely separate organization from scratch. ADA already had deep roots in the Downtown community, established relationships with businesses, city partners, and stakeholders, and a track record of advocacy and programming that spans decades.

Shared staffing means that institutional knowledge, community trust, and organizational capacity serve both missions at once, for the benefit of Asheville Downtown as a whole. The people working on ADID's clean and safe operations are the same people who understand Downtown's history, its businesses, and its challenges. That alignment produces better results than two separate teams working in parallel.

The practical benefit is real: less overhead, more resources directed toward the work, and a unified voice for Downtown on issues that affect everyone in the district, assessed and exempt alike.

ADID maintains its own independent Board of Directors, its own budget, and its own fiduciary obligations to property owners. ADA does not control ADID's funds or decisions. If you have questions about governance or finances, we welcome the conversation. Contact us at erica@ashevilledowntown.org.

When people read about homelessness or public safety challenges Downtown, it is natural to ask what the organization responsible for Downtown's health is doing about it.

ADID cannot solve homelessness. No one organization can. Homelessness is driven by housing costs, mental health system gaps, addiction, economic precarity, the lack of a social safety net, and a shortage of shelter beds. These are national and systemic issues that require national and systemic responses, led by government, healthcare systems, and housing providers.

What ADID can do, and does, is play a meaningful supporting role.

Our Ambassadors are trained in Mental Health First Aid, de-escalation, harm reduction, and Narcan administration. They carry Narcan in the field. They have built real relationships with unhoused individuals in the district over time, and those relationships are often the first step toward someone accepting help. When someone needs outreach or services, we connect them to the City's Resource Engagement Support Team (REST), Homeward Bound, Sunrise Recovery and Wellness, Haywood Congregation, and others within the Continuum of Care who are equipped to provide ongoing care.

In Q2 2026 alone, our Ambassadors completed 2,351 remnant tasks, removing soiled and abandoned personal items from public spaces, on top of thousands of needles removed and additional cleaning and maintenance tasks throughout the district. That work is visible and ongoing.

We are also investing in the environmental conditions that make Downtown feel safer and more welcoming for everyone. Better lighting, active public spaces, and thoughtful design reduce the conditions that make certain areas feel unsafe, without displacing or criminalizing the people who are struggling.

homelessness is not the same as unsafe, and the people experiencing it are our neighbors. We treat them with dignity. We also have an obligation to the broader community to keep Downtown clean, accessible, and welcoming. We do not think those goals are in conflict. The work is slow, the system is broken in ways ADID did not create, and we are doing what we can within our role.

If you have concerns about a specific location or situation, call or text us at 877-828-2343 or submit a request. We respond quickly.

ADID’s Deputy Director also holds the business representative seat on the Buncombe County Continuum of Care (CoC), the regional body that coordinates homeless services and housing resources across the area. That seat matters because the business community and the service provider community have historically operated in separate conversations. We are working to change that. Through the CoC, we share data on Downtown conditions, build relationships between stakeholders who do not always talk to each other, and help bridge the gap between the people who run businesses Downtown and the organizations and individuals working on the front lines of the homelessness crisis. We do not have all the answers. But we are in the room, and we are trying to make sure Downtown's voice is part of the regional solution rather than just a complaint from the sidelines.