Sylva’s leaders have long grappled with how to spur the town’s stagnant residential tax base and get more high-density housing within its limits, but when a proposal for a 136-unit apartment complex made its way before town commissioners last week, the board was less than enthusiastic about the concept.

Macon County elementary schools are near, at or over capacity, and administrators can only shuffle students around so much before a more long-term solution will be needed.

A newly approved expansion project at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort was nearly derailed when a resolution to kill the project was narrowly rejected in Tribal Council this month, with the final vote an even 50-50.

Ingles Markets Inc. is growing in Waynesville again — this time, on Brown Avenue in Hazelwood.

Upgrading the Jackson County Health Department could prove a much less expensive undertaking than originally anticipated, if estimates contained in a recently completed study prove correct.

Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort is stepping into its 20th year of operation with plans for a massive expansion that will add 600-800 hotel rooms, a parking deck and a 100,000-square-foot event center to the existing 1,900,000-square-foot complex.

Hopes for a major renovation and expansion of the Waynesville library were temporarily shelved by county commissioners last year and remain in limbo, now hinging on a to-be-determined strategic plan for the entire library system.

Franklin Chamber of Commerce staff and members are excited about taking a vacant building and turning it into their new home. 

Currently cramped in the same 2,400-square-foot building on Palmer Street the chamber has occupied since 1969, the staff is now envisioning what it will do with the 8,000 square feet of space at the new location at 98 Hyatt Road.

GATLINBURG — Just before hitting the McDonald’s along U.S. 321 east of Gatlinburg on Dec. 2, traffic slows to a crawl. Then, to all but a stop. Hundreds of homeowners, business owners and residents line up in anxious anticipation as to what they’ll find when they finally make it through the checkpoint. An intact home, landscaped with magically unsinged shrubs? Or a pile of ash, nothing left except perhaps a few concrete steps leading to a nonexistent porch?

Haywood Community College’s new Creative Arts Building was supposed to be a state-of-the-art, energy-efficient, environmentally friendly facility.