The Public Works complex for the City of Asheville is sited along a major gateway into downtown.  In the late 1980s the City Council decided to consolidate the many functions of the Department of Public Works into one location.  One option was to relocate the operations to an area of junkyards and abandoned industrial buildings on the French Broad River a mile from downtown.  Another possibility, advocated by the architectural firm hired for the project and supported by the city manager at the time, was to recycle the current site being used for some of the facilities and enlarge it to make it more efficient.  This was challenging because the five acre site—left over from an urban renewal project that took place in the 1970s—was long, narrow, and steep in some places.