Jim Anthony and Anne Ponder celebrate The Cliffs Communities' gift to UNC Asheville

Asheville, N.C. – The University of North Carolina Asheville and The Cliffs Communities announce today that The Cliffs is gifting $1 million to the University’s North Carolina Center for Health & Wellness. The Center will be a hub for educating health and wellness professionals, conducting interdisciplinary research, building community and statewide partnerships, and incubating community programs around critical health-and-wellness issues.

The Center’s initial focus will be on three of North Carolina’s most pressing wellness concerns: childhood obesity, workplace wellness and senior wellness.

"Our legislature was truly visionary in establishing the North Carolina Center for Health & Wellness," said UNC Asheville Chancellor Anne Ponder. "When we combine the talent of our students, our faculty, our neighboring universities, and our top-notch health care organizations, we will have the best possible prescription for addressing the urgent public health concerns of our region. With so much work to be done to improve the health of our state, The Cliffs Communities has stepped forward with an extraordinary gift. With their help, we will be able to make dramatic early progress in working toward this important goal."

The Cliffs Communities Founder and President Jim Anthony has a compelling belief in the importance of comprehensive well-being and now, thanks to The Cliffs' $1 million gift, UNC Asheville's efforts in promoting health across the state will expand as well.

Jim Anthony, Chancellor Ponder (center) and UNC Asheville Athletics Director Janet Cone discuss plans for the North Carolina Center for Health & Wellness

"We are a company that is committed to helping people live well," said Anthony. "Our gift to
UNC Asheville is a natural extension of our corporate values and a way for us to fully engage the surrounding community in an environment where personal goals are set and wellness ambitions are realized. We are looking forward to a long-lasting relationship with UNC Asheville and the North Carolina Center for Health & Wellness through our collaborative effort to improve the quality of life for all individuals."

The Cliffs Communities have also demonstrated their success in working with public universities to achieve multi–dimensional benefits for students, faculty, businesses and the surrounding community. Just recently, The Cliffs announced a collaborative effort with Clemson University in developing and co-managing The Cliffs Center for Environmental Golf Research. Furman University has also been a great source of positive collaboration for The Cliffs, as Southern Living’s first ever green Showcase Home will be built at Furman with the help of The Cliffs. Zest Quest, a non-profit organization was founded four years ago by Anthony, is supported by The Cliffs and other public funding with the goal of improving children’s health and activity levels. Zest Quest has grown to include 14 schools and over 7,000 students. The Cliffs Wellness Symposium, a three-day-long interactive wellness forum tackling top trends in wellness was held at the Grove Park Inn and included highly informative sessions from The Cliffs Medical Advisory Board.

The opportunity with UNC Asheville will be another example of what the private and public sector can achieve when they work together.

Health and Wellness Promotion Department Chair Dr. Keith Ray thanks The Cliffs Communities for its important gift

"The North Carolina Center for Health & Wellness will be a leading catalyst for healthy living for North Carolinians of all ages, for years to come," said Anthony. "This relationship serves to raise awareness of the gift of health and wellness across the Carolinas and beyond. The Cliffs collaboration with an outstanding public liberal arts university like UNC Asheville provides an unprecedented opportunity to address a national crisis in childhood obesity and will open new doors in workplace wellness."

Although construction of the North Carolina Center for Health & Wellness is not slated to begin until 2008, student course work, innovative research projects and community collaborations have already begun. A new academic major in Health and Wellness Promotion is one of the most popular fields of study on campus. A host of topics are explored in the classroom, including the science of nutrition, exercise physiology, gerontology and public health. Faculty and students are working together on a range of research projects. Examples include examining fat metabolism during exercise, women's health habits and obesity, and blood lead levels among older African American men. Meanwhile, community partnerships and planning have been launched with Mission Hospitals, the North Carolina Center for Health and Aging, the Asheville/Buncombe Institute of Parity Achievement, and the Obesity Action Team.

UNC Asheville Athletics Director Janet Cone presents Jim Anthony a token of appreciation as his staff looks on

The North Carolina Center for Health & Wellness will be located in the heart of UNC Asheville's campus, between Justice Center and Reuter Center, home to the N.C. Center for Creative Retirement. The 133,500-square-foot facility will house a dozen classrooms, research and teaching labs; strength training and aerobics rooms; offices, meeting rooms and seminar space; and a dance studio, wellness cafe and demonstration kitchen for use in nutrition courses. The facility also includes a multipurpose convocation center, the Kimmel Arena. It will have seating for 4,000 for commencement and convocation, health fairs, symposiums and national speakers, and seating for 3,400 for intercollegiate basketball.

Construction of the North Carolina Center for Health & Wellness, estimated to cost between $40 and $42 million, is funded in large part by a $35-million appropriation from the N.C. General Assembly. UNC Asheville is raising $5-$7 million in private funds. The University plans to break ground in spring 2008; construction is expected to take 18 to 24 months. The project architects are Bowers Ellis & Watson of Asheville, and HOK, an international firm that specializes in public assembly architecture.


About The Cliffs Communities
Founded in 1991 by Jim Anthony, The Cliffs Communities is devoted to the sensible development of residential communities and other properties, within the United States and around the world. The Cliffs’ domestic properties include eight premier, private master-planned residential communities located in the heart of the Carolina Preserve between Asheville, N.C., and Greenville, S.C., collectively bordered by hundreds of thousands of acres of national forests and state parks. The Cliffs Communities recognizes the effect of living healthy and has developed a keen sense for one of the driving factors of a thriving neighborhood: the health of its residents. The Cliffs Communities has made wellness a priority in not only their communities but the work place as well. Each community offers a range of amenities focused on healthy living, including a 10-acre organic garden, 30 miles of groomed trails, state-of-the-art wellness centers and hundreds of classes, seminars, health fairs and fitness challenges. The Cliffs have also instilled an Associates Wellness Program with a dedicated Wellness Team to help execute the program. (www.cliffscommunities.com)

About UNC Asheville
UNC Asheville, a four-year public liberal arts university located in the mountains of Western North Carolina with 3,500 students, has earned a national reputation for its programs in the humanities, undergraduate research, atmospheric sciences and environmental studies. The University is also quickly becoming a leader in the field of health and wellness. UNC Asheville's new Health and Wellness Promotion major is one of the fastest growing on campus, with courses in exercise physiology, nutrition and gerontology. Outside the classroom, faculty and students are at work on groundbreaking investigations on fat metabolism during exercise, women's health habits and obesity, and reduction of blood lead level concentrations among older African American men. In 2010, the University expects to open the North Carolina Center for Health & Wellness on campus, which will become home to the major as well as a hub for research, regional and statewide partnerships, and incubating community programs around three of North Carolina's most pressing wellness concerns: childhood obesity, workplace wellness and senior wellness. (www.unca.edu)