Experience 

Pack Place!

A Place for Everyone!

A DREAM 

COMES TO LIFE

Pack Place at its final stages. . .

After eight years of planning, Roger McGuire's vision became reality July 4, 1992 when Pack Place Education, Arts & Science Center officially opened its doors to the public.

Roger McGuire believed that Asheville could be a better city.  After retiring from his executive position at Southern Living, he and his wife decided to make Asheville their home.  An avid local historian, he saw that a century of "boom and bust" had left the impression that something was missing.  Some of Asheville's sacred treasures, the beautiful buildings, had been scarred by the Depression and this is where McGuire and his colleagues joined the effort to rebuild Asheville's downtown.

In 1982 the Junior League and the North Carolina Arts Council commissioned a Cultural Action Plan.  In this plan, it was decided that arts and business organizations would have to become partners to ensure long-term success.  They believed this partnership might include a revitalization of downtown's inner core.  Asheville received a federal grant in 1984, the grant was to be used for the redevelopment of Pack Square.  Developers immediately realized that the old Pack Library and the adjoining theatre would not fit into a redevelopment project, and urged the community to find a long-term plan for them.  These buildings were eventually donated to the city.  

McGuire suddenly found himself appointed to help organize the long-term plan, and for the next few years he met regularly with a consultant and three dozen volunteers. 

McGuire's committee, the self-named "Pack Rats", developed a $14 million dollar project that involved new and renovated structures that would become the cultural hub of a new downtown.  It was nothing short of amazing.

The plan stated this new structure would house Three Centuries of Pack Square, Asheville Art Museum, The Health Adventure, Colburn Gem & Mineral Museum, Diana Wortham Theatre and the YMI Cultural Center.  Some of these organizations had been operating in basements and most could not have raised several million dollars on their own.  By joining together, they would succeed.  

After the plan was presented, the committee set out to fund their endeavors.  In the end $9 million in private gifts matched the $6 million in local and state grants.  Along with the many contributors, McGuire and his wife donated $250,000 to make Pack Place a reality and several other gifts included substantial grants from the Kresge Foundation, Steelcase Corporation and the Janirve Foundation.  

Built by the hard work of volunteers, Pack Place was to be a creative fix for Asheville's future.  McGuire believed that with this project, Asheville had a way to express their pride in themselves and the area.  McGuire died in 1994, two years after Pack Place Education, Arts & Science Center opened. 

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