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Mars Hill to meet with 3 developers for new restaurant mixed-use space downtown

Mars Hill to meet with 3 developers for new restaurant mixed-use space downtown

Yahoo12-05-2025
MARS HILL - A new restaurant is coming to downtown Mars Hill, as the town will take applications for the mixed-use project this month.
Town Manager Nathan Bennett said the town will meet this month with three potential developers for the mixed-use project at 9 and 15 S. Main St., the former Robinson Building, located at the corner of Mountain View Road and South Main Street, next to the down gazebo.
Town Manager Nathan Bennett reported to the Mars Hill Town Board in its May 5 meeting.
Bennett said in September the overall concept plan of the site is a mixed-use development, with plans for a restaurant on the first floor, with multiple residential or professional offices on the upper or lower floors.
According to the town manager, at least five developers had inquired about the South Main Street mixed-use development project.
According to Bennett, construction has begun on the new bathrooms at Bailey Mountain Preserve and Park.
In November 2023, the town board voted unanimously to enter into a contract agreement with T.P. Howard's Plumbing for the project.
The scope of work for the project was to provide ADA-accessible hard sidewalks near the Smith Farm part of the property, as well as picnic areas, parking and driveway improvements, and also providing walkways to be used for an amphitheater.
Funding sources for the project include an N.C. Parks and Recreation Trust Fund grant award for $268,536 for park renovations at Bailey Mountain Preserve and Park, which the town received in fall 2021.
In November 2023, Bennett recommended the town use local funds, including $321,000 in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding, supplemented by the more than $286,000 in state grant funding.
"Put that together with $268,536 from the state, and that would be $590,000," Bennett said. "That would be enough to do the permitted contract and the funds that were set aside are estimated to do the house renovations and the restroom renovations. That would be a complete project."
In his report to the board, Bennett said the town submitted a $500,000 Parks and Recreation Trust Fund grant, a portion of the funds needed to purchase the 75-acre West Farm.
The town is working with local groups, including the Richard L. Hoffman Foundation, to purchase the 75-acre tract to be included in the Bailey Mountain Preserve property.
Bennett applauded the work of Lee Hoffman, the Richard L. Hoffman Foundation executive director, as well as Ryan Bell, chair of the Friends of the Bailey Mountain advocacy group.
According to the town manager, the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund recipients will be announced in August.
In January, the town put up $120,000 to secure the two-year option to purchase the tract — named after the West family who owns the land — which sits adjacent to the Bailey Mountain Preserve's Smith Farm property off Forest Street.
More: Mars Hill renames main trail at Bailey Mountain Preserve in honor of Richard L. Hoffman
More: New restaurant coming to downtown Mars Hill? Town approves requests for proposals process
More: Mars Hill approves Bailey Mountain improvements, Main Street gazebo walkway replacement
More: Mars Hill raising funds to protect Bailey Mountain Preserve against development
Additionally, the town was approved for $85,000 in reimbursement for FEMA public assistance program.
Bennett said the town's reimbursement will be transferred to the North Carolina Emergency Management division, which will then contact the town for the grant paperwork to be disbursed.
Johnny Casey is the Madison County communities reporter for The Citizen Times and The News-Record & Sentinel. He can be reached at 828-210-6074 or jcasey@citizentimes.com.
This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Mars Hill to meet with 3 developers for new restaurant mixed-use space
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The real effects of the Wisconsin state budget on children
The real effects of the Wisconsin state budget on children

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time2 days ago

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The real effects of the Wisconsin state budget on children

As federal aid ran out, advocates called on lawmakers to fund the Child Care Counts program using state dollars, as Evers proposed. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner) This summer Democratic and Republican legislators along with the Gov. Tony Evers participated in closed-door negotiations to come up with the 2025-27 state budget. All of the parties involved are touting the budget as a historic advance for children and patting themselves on the back for compromising with each other and the work they accomplished. In other words, they played well in the sandbox together. While yes, the state budget has never included funding for child care in its history, as we were one of only six states that didn't, crowing about it now is kind of like touting the fact that you've just changed a diaper for the first time when your child is 2 years old. It's not something to brag about, and the new state budget is nothing to brag about either. On the surface, as you read the claims about historic investments in child care and K-12 schools, you might think the budget really solved some big problems. Take Evers' statement celebrating 'Over $330 million to support Wisconsin's child care industry and help lower child care costs for working families, a third of which is in direct payments to providers.' That means only $110 million is to continue the direct investment to all 4,700 eligible regulated child care programs. The original amount for this program was $480 million. Child care is receiving less than 25% of the requested amount. You might have surmised from Evers' victorious statement that parents will see a decrease in tuition costs with the new budget. However, the opposite is going to be occurring, and tuition increases will start in August. The $110 million will cause child care rates to increase next month because the new state investment is less than a third of what Child Care Counts, funded through the American Rescue Plan Act, originally provided. The purpose of that money was to stabilize a field that had been declining for decades. It increased teachers' wages while holding down tuition costs for parents. It worked. The data showed a decline in closures and it raised the average child care educator's wage from $11 an hour to $13 an hour in Wisconsin. (In our state, over 50% of early child care teachers have some college education or degree, with an average of 10 years experience.) This month the ARPA funds run out, and for the past few years, knowing the federal funding would be ending, families, child care providers, and businesses have been advocating for the state to fill the gap and to subsidize child care. We know that for every $1 a state invests in early childhood education, the rate of return is between $10-$16. Not only does quality early child care give children an opportunity for greater success as adults, it also supports our workforce, families and the economy. Regardless of the research and well-being of children, the gatekeepers of our tax dollars on the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee deleted Evers' $480 million direct state investment budget request for child care. Instead, child care funding was determined behind closed doors with Senate Minority Leader Diane Hesselbein and Evers in one corner and Rep. Vos and Senate Majority Leader Devin Lemahieu in the other. It should be noted that no one in that space is considered an expert in child care policy. What came out of this room was a compromise for the sake of compromise. The $110 million for child care won't come from state dollars. It's the interest that has accrued on the federal ARPA funds. It will be allocated directly to child care providers over the next 11 months, until June of 2026. It comes to about 70% less than the original amount paid through CCC. This is why, starting in August, there will be significant closures of child care centers and home daycares in rural areas of the state — already considered a child care desert. Tuition will increase at the child care operations that try to stay open. So no, working families will not 'see a decrease in childcare costs' as stated by Evers. And when the $110 million ends next year, there is nothing to replace it. The Wisconsin Legislature will gavel out in March and not gavel in until January of 2027, as legislators will be campaigning the rest of 2026. There won't be an opportunity to pass emergency legislation funding child care. Rates will increase again and closures will continue. The remainder of the $330 million in child care funding in the new state budget is for several new programs. A $66 million state investment for 4-year-olds to access 'school readiness' in their child care program. This will help parents as the state will pay for their 'preschool' time, but it replaces tuition for part of the school day. Child care programs that have school districts with all-day, free 4K will likely find it almost impossible to compete with public schools when they still need to charge for the remainder of the day plus wrap-around care. In addition, there is a $28 million pilot project to deregulate the child care field, which ends in July 2027. This move comes directly from the Republicans' playbook. The pilot project will incentivize providers to increase their ratios, meaning more children per teacher, lower quality and safety for children and more stress on teachers. Another harmful policy in the new budget is that 16-year-olds are now allowed to be assistant teachers and count as adults in the ratio. Coupled with the pilot project mentioned above, this means a classroom of 14 toddlers can be supervised by one 18-year-old and one 16-year-old. This reduces the quality, safety, care and education for the children in our programs. Recall that while these decisions were being made behind closed doors, there were no experts in child care policy in the room. This policy was made without consideration of our state accreditation program, YoungStar, and our national accreditations. Any program that participates in the pilot project will no longer qualify to be accredited. And in Wisconsin, accreditation is not just a certificate to state you are following high safety standards, but our YoungStar program is tethered to our Wisconsin Shares (subsidy for child care). Programs with a five or four-star rating receive a bonus subsidy rate. It can mean a considerable loss of funding for providers to participate in the new pilot project. The politicians who wrote the budget deal behind closed doors neglected to consider the increased cost or loss of insurance for providers when we increase the teacher-to-child ratio and when we allow 16-year-olds to count as adults. The same group of non-experts also decided to allow policies that, in 2023, were already proposed and had failed to become law due to the overwhelming outcry from families, providers and the medical field against a policy that reduces quality and safety for our children. The state is throwing millions of dollars in the garbage for these policies, which won't benefit child care programs and will cause actual harm to Wisconsin children. Enacting policies like these without holding hearings raises the question: Who is representing us? The public already overwhelmingly said no to these policies two years ago. Furthermore, funding for child care is one of the top priorities that the JFC heard from voters throughout the state at budget listening sessions. Surveys show that the majority of both Republican and Democratic constituents support funding early child care. The only real compromise made in this budget was the compromise of safety and quality of our youngest children in the state. So how did school-age children fare in the state budget? Again, we are reading about record-setting investments in schools, along with the biggest investment our state has ever made for children with disabilities. Evers proclaimed that the new budget 'secures the largest increase to special education reimbursement rate in state history.' You might think, great, finally children with disabilities will receive the support and resources they need. But you would be wrong. Evers' budget request was for a 60% reimbursement for children with disabilities. After all, 90% reimbursement is the amount that Wisconsin voucher and charter schools have already been receiving for children with special needs. Unfortunately, the new budget allows public schools a maximum of 42% in 2026 and 45% in 2027 reimbursement, which is a far cry from the 60% request — the rate of the 1980s. Yes, the increase in this budget is technically the largest increase in recent years, but it is still miles away from the finish line. To make matters worse, the budget also provided a $0 per-pupil increase in general aid funding to public schools; however, a provision was placed in the budget paperwork that guaranteed voucher and charter schools would receive additional funding for their general aid in the budget. I can't recall a year when no new general funding was provided in a budget to public schools in Wisconsin. Last year Wisconsin saw a record number of public schools go to referendum to squeeze additional funding from their communities to compensate for the lack of state and federal funding. Under the new budget, we will see another record number of schools going to referendum next year. We will also likely see more schools close, specifically in rural, poorer areas where the communities cannot be squeezed any more than they already have been. As you can imagine, this budget will only continue to widen the education gap in quality between the wealthy and the poor. Not to be all doom and gloom, there was one category of children that fared quite well with the new budget: our juvenile offenders. The budget will invest $1 million per juvenile offender. Yes, $1 million per kid. Remember when it was mentioned that investing in our youth early on saves us tenfold later on? The children in our juvenile justice systems are children who were not given the opportunity for quality early child care, children who were raised in poverty, children who have been abused, children who experience trauma, children with mental health issues. The children in our juvenile systems are those who have been failed by our state. Their families could not afford child care, so they were shuffled from one person to another. They lived with violence and addiction in their homes. And when they got to school at age 5, they were already on a trajectory of despair; the school systems cannot afford to provide all the services and support these children need, especially for those who have suffered trauma at an early age. Our new state budget only prioritizes these children once they are ready to be locked away. Unfortunately the hype about Wisconsin making record investments in our children is terribly overblown. Instead, the truth of the matter is that we are putting in the minimum, and this budget keeps us on the lowest tier as a state for investment in our public schools and our young children compared to other states. Meanwhile, we continue to be among the biggest spenders on our juvenile offenders. Our political leaders have misled us. I don't think most Wisconsinites care whether their representatives can compromise or not. I think we would all rather have elected politicians who will actually represent us with integrity. Represent us with values that prioritize our children, families, workforce and our economy. This is our common humanity. We can stop generational poverty. We can stop children from going hungry, we can support children who have been abused and neglected, and we can give children a chance in life. But we just made the choice not to do that. Correction: An earlier version of this commentary misstated the amount of Gov. Tony Evers' budget request as 90% instead of 60%. We regret the error. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Solve the daily Crossword

Criminal justice advocates unsatisfied with state budget
Criminal justice advocates unsatisfied with state budget

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Criminal justice advocates unsatisfied with state budget

Advocates, Gov. Tony Evers and Republican lawmakers have conflicting views about the Department of Corrections funding in the 2025-27 state budget. (Photo by) For criminal justice advocates in Wisconsin, the new state budget leaves much to be desired. Although the $111 billion two-year budget signed by Gov. Tony Evers earlier this month will help eventually close the beleaguered Lincoln Hills juvenile prison, some feel that it missed opportunities to reform the state's justice system. 'Wisconsin's elected officials, including Gov. Evers and state legislators, have once again failed to take meaningful action to overhaul the state's broken and inhumane carceral system,' Mark Rice, statewide coordinator for WISDOM's Transformative Justice Campaign, wrote in a statement released July 11. 'The recently passed state budget ignores the deep harm caused by mass incarceration and falls far short of what is needed to address the humanitarian crisis unfolding inside Wisconsin's prisons.' Evers' original budget proposal released in February contained a number of proposals that were removed or reduced by the Legislature's Republican-led Joint Finance Committee, including $8.9 million to support alternatives to revocation. Another pitch by Evers for $4 million to fund community reentry centers was cut in half by Joint Finance. His proposed $3.19 million in supportive housing service beds for people under DOC supervision was removed. Over $1 million in funding for six positions on the DOC's Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance team was also removed by JFC. Evers proposed a total increase of $519 million to the Department of Corrections budget over the next two years. The final budget deal instead increased the DOC budget by $461 million over the two-year period. The budget's capital projects plan, passed by the Legislature and signed by Evers, allocated $225 million to the Department of Corrections (DOC), as well as another $15 million towards construction planning for facilities, with the goal of closing the Green Bay Correctional Institution by 2029. Evers used his partial veto to strike the 2029 deadline for closing Green Bay. 'We need more compromise on that,' said Evers, who added that he supports closing the prison, one of Wisconsin's oldest, but called the timeline unrealistic: 'Saying we're going to do Green Bay by '29 doesn't mean a damn thing.' In his veto message, Evers said that he objected to the Legislature 'assigning a date' to close the Green Bay prison 'while providing virtually no real, meaningful, or concrete plan to do so.' 'I support closing Green Bay Correctional Institution,' Evers wrote. 'Indeed, my administration spent years working on a comprehensive corrections reform plan to be able to close Green Bay Correctional Institution quickly, safely, and cost efficiently, which was included in the biennial budget I introduced months ago. I proposed a 'domino' series of facility changes, improvements, and modernization efforts across Wisconsin's correctional institutions while improving public safety by expanding workforce training opportunities to reduce the likelihood that people might reoffend after they are released. Under that plan, Green Bay Correctional Institution would be closed in 2029. Instead, the Legislature sent this budget with the same deadline and no plan of which to speak.' Lincoln Hills, Wisconsin's notoriously troubled juvenile prison, which still houses 79 boys according to the DOC's most recent population report, blew years past its own closure deadline. Now, the budget provides $130.7 million to build a new Type 1 juvenile facility in Dane County to help facilitate the closure of Lincoln Hills. Plans for a second Type 1 facility in Milwaukee County ran into roadblocks from local resistance and political disagreements in the Capitol, though the facility's completion is still planned. Green Bay's prison was originally built in 1898. Plaques embedded in its outer wall commemorate that the wall was 'erected by inmates' in 1921. Over 1,100 people are incarcerated in the prison, which is designed to hold only 749, according to the DOC's most recent weekly population report. In late June, prison reform advocates from JOSHUA, a local affiliate of WISDOM, held a monthly vigil and prayer service outside the prison, where people are held in 'disciplinary separation' for the longest periods in any of DOC's adult facilities. Protesters included people whose loved ones have died inside the prison, some by suicide due to a lack of mental health support. In late August, 19-year-old Michah Laureano died in the prison after he was attacked by his cell mate. Although the budget aims to close Green Bay, how that will be accomplished remains hazy. Rice wrote that the budget 'includes no plan' to close the prison, 'despite overwhelming evidence that the facility is beyond repair.' Instead, Rice wrote in a statement that 'some legislators continue to push for more studies and planning tactics that will only delay justice while people continue to suffer and die behind bars. This is unacceptable.' That sentiment was echoed by the Ladies of SCI, an advocacy group formed by women with loved ones at the Stanley Correctional Institution. Although the group appreciated that closing Green Bay was part of the budget discussion, 'we also agree that does not mean much without funding an actual plan,' the group wrote in an email to Wisconsin Examiner. 'The [Joint Finance Committee] committed that the plan presented by [DOC] Secretary [Jared] Hoy's team in the Governor's initial budget was 'just an idea' and yet, the JFC also just put an 'idea' in the budget. Yes, they put in dollars for a plan to be developed, but this has already been done several times over.' Studies for closing Green Bay, Waupun, and other old and blighted facilities have been recommended as far back as 1965, Ladies of SCI wrote in the statement. 'Here we are, 60 years later, STILL discussing it. The most recent study was done in 2020 and called out almost $1 billion in projects to increase capacity across our facilities to just handle that population level…We are well above that population level today.' The group asks, 'Is $15 million actually enough to finally get tangible actions to deal with our Corrections crisis? We'd like to know what the magic combination of dollars and opinions are needed to finally address issues that have been identified over and over.' Ladies of SCI said 'setting aside money for yet another study and plan development is rinse and repeat of history…The bottom line is our state's prison population is too big for what we currently have.' Rice concurred, writing in his own statement that prisons like Green Bay, Waupun (the state's oldest prison where multiple deaths have occurred in recent years), and the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility (MSDF) 'are notorious for inhumane conditions and should have been shut down years ago.' Rice added that 'there is no justification for continuing to pour hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into maintaining or expanding a failed prison system.' Instead, he believes that the state should commit to reducing the prison population by expanding treatment alternatives to incarceration, commuting 'excessive and unjust sentences,' granting 'fair access to parole and early release,' and stopping the practice of locking people up for 'technical or convictionless revocations.' When Evers wrote his message vetoing the deadline for closing Green Bay, there were 362 people working at the prison and more than 1,100 incarcerated adults. 'As of this writing, Wisconsin has the capacity to house 17,638 individuals at its correctional institutions but there are 23,275 people living in [DOC] institutions across Wisconsin;' Evers wrote, 'the Legislature provides no steps whatsoever to stabilize the state's skyrocketing prison population.' Referring to the saga of Lincoln Hills, Evers added, 'Wisconsin already has about a decade's worth of painful experience learning how well it works in practice to set unrealistic, artificial timelines and due dates for closing prison facilities without a complete and thorough plan for implementation. It would be foolish and dangerous to attempt to take a similar approach with a maximum-security institution like Green Bay Correctional Institution.' Just over one-third of the 2,727 new prison admissions statewide between January and April were people sent back to prison for issues like violating the rules of community supervision, and without a new crime committed or sentence issued, according to the DOC's dashboard. Over the same period of time, there were more than 63,435 people on community supervision, probation, or parole. Sean Wilson, senior director of organizing and partnerships at criticized the cuts to proposals to expand alternatives to incarceration, 'clean-slate' legislation and expungement reforms that were left out of the final budget deal. 'I think that there continues to be a lack of re-entry investments, which should be pretty high on the list,' Wilson told Wisconsin Examiner. For years, criminal justice advocates have pushed for support for housing, access to mental health care and jobs, 'those things were not included in the budget.' With less than 3,000 people housed between Green Bay, Waupun, and MSDF, Rice feels that 'these prisons could be emptied and closed within months' and that 'doing so would not only alleviate human suffering but it would also free up critical resources' which 'must be reinvested in the communities most harmed by incarceration.' From providing living-wage jobs and stable housing to creating educational opportunities and violence prevention, Rice wrote in his statement, 'that is how we build true public safety.' The path forward is clear: Care, not cages. Communities, not prisons. – Mark Rice, statewide coordinator for WISDOM's Transformative Justice Campaign Wilson declared that 'the biggest elephant in the room' was that 'there's no real movement on closing outdated prisons or reducing the DOC's footprint.' He stressed that 'we are beyond design capacity…with 5,000 additional bodies [beyond the number] this system was designed for.' Without a concrete roadmap and deadline, he says the budget commitment to closing the Green Bay prison doesn't mean much. Over 20 years ago, Wilson spent time in the Green Bay prison, which he remembers as 'a dilapidated hellhole…It was a trauma pressure cooker in my opinion.' 'But the fact that they're talking about just studying it, that really made me livid as someone who spent time in that facility, and is currently in communication with many individuals who are still housed there today,' he added. Wilson said he doesn't see focused funding to reduce racial disparities in incarceration, nor is there funding to support people who have been directly impacted by the criminal justice system and are trying to lead a reform effort. 'I think if you look at the movement at large for the last 20 years, it's been led by directly impacted leadership,' said Wilson. 'Because we believe in the words of Glenn Martin that those closest to the problem are closest to the solution.' People with personal experience need to be brought to the table to offer both critiques and solutions, he said. Ladies of SCI called the building plans in the budget 'just one of the steps our lawmakers must take to address things,' and pointed to separate legislation introduced by Republican Senator Andre Jacque (R-DePere) and Rep. Paul Tittl (R-Manitowoc), which the group believed would have put needed investments into rehabilitation 'instead of warehousing people in our crumbling facilities.' Evers said the budget was an exercise of compromise and cooperation. 'We need to work together,' he said after signing the budget less than an hour after the Assembly passed it. 'Compare that to what's going on in Washington, D.C., and it's significantly different, so I'm very proud to sign it,' Evers said of the bipartisan compromise. In order to retain $1 billion per year in federal Medicaid matching funds, legislators on both sides of the aisle worked to finalize the bill before the federal reconciliation bill was signed by President Donald Trump. Another one of Evers' partial vetoes stirred discussion around juvenile incarceration. The Senate version of the budget specified that state juvenile correctional facilities would operate at a rate of $912,000 in 2025-26 per kid, per year, before increasing to over $1 million per kid per year for 2026-27. Evers' partial vetoes lowered the rates to $182,865 per kid in 2025-26, and $275,670 per kid in the following years. Over the last decade the cost of housing for each young person in youth corrections in Wisconsin has quadrupled from $303 per day in 2014 to $1,268 per day in 2024, largely due to a lower population of incarcerated youth and higher staffing needs. In his veto message, Evers objected to the Legislature's plan to continue expanding the costs of the existing youth incarceration system during a time of 'uncertainty,' and delays in closing youth prisons. Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine) criticized Evers for using a veto to cut housing expenditures for juvenile offenders. 'Evers' veto of this provision is unsustainable and he knows it,' said Wanggaard. 'The statutory daily rate is not a number that we come up with out of thin air. It's simple math – the total cost to operate our juvenile facilities divided by the average population.' Wanggaard added that 'up until now, a county sending a juvenile to a state facility paid for those costs…Governor Evers just decided unilaterally to turn it on its head and have the state pick up the vast majority of costs. It flips the entire funding of juvenile corrections without debate or discussion. It's irresponsible.' Wanggaard also said that Evers' refusal to utilize the expansion of the Mendota Juvenile Treatment Center to house more youth offenders is driving costs higher. Children can only be placed in Mendota when it's clinically appropriate, however. The facility was never intended to replace Lincoln Hills, or augment bed space for incarcerated kids. In his veto message, Evers explained why he shifted the cost burden from local communities to the state, writing that he objected 'to establishing a daily rate that is unaffordable to counties.' He continued that, 'I have heard loud and clear from counties that the current daily rate is burdensome and will detrimentally impact public safety. Unbelievably, despite that clear message from the counties, the Legislature has chosen to increase that rate by over $1,000 per day. This increase and funding model is untenable, and counties have expressed that this unaffordable increase will have serious and detrimental effects on other county services.' Evers urged the Legislature to 'revisit this issue in separate legislation and appropriate those additional GPR funds to the department.' Criminal justice advocates around the state say viable solutions must go beyond incarceration. Lincoln Hills continues to be under a court-ordered monitor due to a successful lawsuit that brought attention to the harms done to both incarcerated youth and reports of abuse within the facility. Waupun's prison has yet to recover from a string of deaths which ultimately led to charges against the prison's warden and several staff. Green Bay is also notorious for inhumane conditions and deaths behind bars. 'We don't need more studies, we need action,' said Wilson. When he was incarcerated at Green Bay between the years 2000 and 2005, he added, 'I watched people get battered by each other. I saw individuals get beaten by staff. I see the paint peeling, the walls are sweating. The prison cells are outdated. You're talking about a facility that was built in the 1800's…And you're putting people in this facility in 2025 and you are expecting them to come home sane. You are expecting them to navigate this space in a rational way. You expect them to interact with one another in a humane way when you are housing them, or caging them, as if they were animals. Wisconsin should stop wasting taxpayer money by keeping people in cages that should've been shuttered decades ago!' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Solve the daily Crossword

DL Mining Launches AI-Powered Zero-Carbon Staking Platform Amid XRP and PoS Market Growth
DL Mining Launches AI-Powered Zero-Carbon Staking Platform Amid XRP and PoS Market Growth

Business Insider

time3 days ago

  • Business Insider

DL Mining Launches AI-Powered Zero-Carbon Staking Platform Amid XRP and PoS Market Growth

Scotland, UK, July 17th, 2025, FinanceWire XRP RISES,DL Mining launches zero-carbon staking service: AI-driven, high liquidity, institutional-grade security DL Mining's latest zero-carbon staking service is an important extension of its cloud mining business, combining renewable energy, AI-optimized rewards and institutional-grade security, aiming to provide investors with a more environmentally friendly and efficient PoS (proof of stake) staking solution. The following are the core highlights and advantages of the service: DL Mining, a European leader in blockchain infrastructure, has introduced a new zero-carbon staking service—an extension of its cloud mining operations—designed to offer environmentally responsible, high-liquidity staking across leading proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchains. This launch comes as investor interest in sustainable crypto products grows, coinciding with XRP's recent price surge and increased PoS adoption across the industry. Built on renewable energy and enhanced with artificial intelligence, the service allows users to stake assets such as ETH, SOL, and ADA, while benefiting from institutional-grade risk control and flexible liquidity. Core Features of DL Mining's Staking Platform 100% Renewable Energy, 92% Lower Emissions: All staking nodes are powered by solar and wind energy in Scandinavia. Third-party audits confirm that DL Mining's carbon emissions are 92% lower than those of traditional mining operations. This aligns with ESG-focused investment strategies, allowing users to support low-impact blockchain participation. AI-Driven Optimization for Higher Returns: The platform uses proprietary AI algorithms to dynamically allocate funds across high-growth PoS chains. Real-time market data is incorporated to optimize staking strategies, aiming to enhance annualized yield (APY) compared to static or manual approaches. No Lock-Up Periods and Daily Withdrawal Option: Stakers can withdraw funds within 24 hours, with no mandatory holding periods. This offers increased flexibility for users responding to market volatility. The minimum stake to participate is $100. Security and Insurance Protections: DL Mining operates on SOC 2 Type II certified infrastructure and maintains a $250 million insurance policy through Lloyd's of London, covering operational and custody-related risks. Environmental Impact: According to Michael Roy, Chief Sustainability Officer at DL Mining, 'Our staking platform enables measurable environmental benefits—every $1,000 staked offsets approximately 2.5 tons of CO₂ annually through verified clean energy integration.' Growing Institutional Interest in PoS The recent approval of Ethereum ETFs and institutional attention toward PoS chains like Solana has contributed to increased interest in low-risk, high-efficiency staking options. DL Mining's latest product aims to serve this demand by providing an infrastructure that balances sustainability with performance. Getting Started Interested users can access the staking service by visiting DL Mining's official website, selecting a supported PoS asset, and depositing funds. The platform automatically allocates staking resources based on AI-powered optimization, and daily yields are credited directly to the user's account. A limited-time registration incentive includes $15 in platform credits for new accounts, allowing users to explore the service without initial commitment. About DL Mining Founded in 2014, DL Mining operates one of the largest renewable energy-based blockchain infrastructures in Europe. With over 6.5 million users globally and support for more than 10 PoS assets, the company continues to innovate in the fields of green technology, AI-powered finance, and secure crypto infrastructure. Contact Dlmining

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