March 20, 2015 · Exit133

A New Asia Pacific Cultural Center at Point Ruston?

In 2011 we watched with interest as the Asia Pacific Cultural Center proposed building a new cultural center in downtown Tacoma on the vacant City-owned lots adjacent to the Brewery District and UW Tacoma campus.

After some back and forth between APCC and the City, that project ultimately didn't go forward. Now it looks like they've got a new idea: bringing their plans for a large mixed-use cultural center to the Point Ruston area. It's a pretty grand vision - residential units, retail, a grocery store, food court, and cultural center with classrooms, a theater, training kitchens, display rooms, and a variety of courtyards and garden spaces.

Although they've been keeping fairly quiet about it, the idea has apparently been in the works for a while now. In 2014 design firm Environmental Works began work on a feasibility study funded by a Seattle Foundation GiveBIG partnership. The study would clarify the vision for the APCC and potential partners and donors to look at whether or not the waterfront location makes sense.

An article this week in Northwest Asian Weekly looks at the new Point Ruston idea - including funding for the potential $87 million project. The APCC would like to work with EB-5 foreign investors, as well as federal, state, and private funding sources.

Then there's the question of acquiring the land. The article describes "friendly conversations" between APCC and Point Ruston, relating to a possible $5 million purchase of 4 acres of Point Ruston property - $5 million they're hoping gets included in the budget in the current legislative session.

We haven't seen the results of the feasibility study, or anything like a detailed site plan yet, and there's no talk from Point Ruston, or the City of Ruston yet, but it appears the proposal is to build the project on the Ruston side of the development. We also see a couple different square-footage numbers - 176,000 in the Environmental Works post from 2014, and a significantly higher 390,000 square feet in this week's NW Asian Weekly article. It's clearly still in very early stages.

In a note on the APCC website, founder Patsy Surh O'Connell describes the construction of a new center as "the next necessary big step" for the organization. We'll be waiting to see whether they'll be taking that step in the Point Ruston neighborhood.

Filed under: Waterfront, Developments, Tacoma Nonprofits, Ruston Way, Point Ruston, Economic Development, APCC, EB-5

16 comments

Jesse March 21, 2015

Personally, I like the downtown plan from 2011 better. It allows expansion possibilities and is value added to the other downtown attractions - it just needed more housing. But, whatever they decide, I am excited for them and wish them the best of luck on this.
ApitbullnamedPlug March 21, 2015

Umm... Why not put it in the Lincoln neighborhood? You know, where there's already an Asian commercial district. Give that neighborhood a shot in the arm and double down on the cultural life there.
- JDHasty March 22, 2015
  
  That makes sense to me.
Altered Chords March 22, 2015

Pitbull makes a great point. Why was that area overlooked? Hmmm....Lincoln district seems mostly Vietnamese....So. Tacoma Way seems mostly Korean....APCC must be interested in a different part of Asia...China perhaps...This is making sense now. I recall hearing about a group from China interested in the brewery/UW Tacoma area....Guess that didn't work out. They will probably need to build a "Town of Ruston Reconcilliation Park" in order to motivate the Ruston council to pick up their pens and approve permits to build.
thackerspeed March 23, 2015

"APCC Executive Director Lua Pritchard says APCC will tap into the EB5 foreign investment program, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Washington State Department of Commerce, the Legislative Capital Budget, the Pierce County Development Block Grant, corporate sponsors, private foundations, and community fundraising." "...the center to be completed so that the history of immigrants — whether they be from China, Korea, Japan, Hawaii, Pakistan, India or any of the 47 countries that the APCC represents — can be preserved.--Northwest Asian Weekly, 3/19/15. "Building A History For Immigrants" What are the obligations of the United States to the citizens of other nations? Why should U.S. taxpayers fund the ethnic and national interests of "seed" populations of previous immigrants? Has Ruston or Tacoma seriously considered the consequences of a new experiment in the forced mixing of cultures, life-styles, and government policy? On the local level, according to the Mayor's "State of the City 2015" address, Tacoma can hardly now cope with the "people of color" who have yet to become fully assimilated and productive members of our society. It should be the goal of local government to protect the social and political order--institutions and social structures--through better management of resources and by greatly reducing the strain on the system.
- ApitbullnamedPlug March 26, 2015
  
  You're right thacker. This is social engineering by a black mayor to force "mixing of cultures". The duty of gubment is to preserve the social order. Which means we shouldn't bring in any more colored people since, as you say, our current colored population "have yet to become fully assimilated and productive members of society." This is all probably a part of the nefarious plot by the mayor you have mentioned elsewhere: to overthrow the government and declare herself dictator for life. She is, as you're fond of pointing out, both black and a woman; so doubly untrustworthy. What a d-bag.
  - thackerspeed March 26, 2015
    
    The only thing untrustworthy, according to directly observable data, is your powers of observation and interpretation. If I was as mean as you infer, I'd send you a brain cell so that you would have two to rub together.
    - ApitbullnamedPlug March 26, 2015
      
      Umm... I quoted you directly. The world must be a really scary place for you, with all these colored people coming in and disrupting your social order.
      - thackerspeed March 26, 2015
        
        What an F-tard.
        
        Xeno March 26, 2015
        
        Look what being sardonic and esoteric gets you.
        
        thackerspeed March 27, 2015
        
        As a professional persuader, I make every effort to talk to people on their own level, in their own language, in an effort to promote clarity and understanding. In the culture of F-tardia, if 51% of F-tardians voted that one of their tribe was more than an ordinary F-tard, would their majority vote make the claim true? No. Neither majority vote, nor words, can change facts.
        
        ApitbullnamedPlug March 27, 2015
        
        "A professional persuader?" That's classic. Good luck with that. All I can say is if you don't like your own asinine comments quoted back to you, don't make them.
        
        thackerspeed March 29, 2015
        
        For the sake of humanitarian compassion, would you clarify your opposition to my efforts to improve the well-being of individuals in Tacoma? My position is that socioeconomic problems are likely the result of fundamental problems in the form and content of political, social, and economic institutions and philosophies.
Sid March 23, 2015

This is probably one of the creepiest projects I have read about here in Tacoma. Let's see, clumping a group of people together so other people can come and look at them while playing tourist. Is this what it has come to, human zoos How despicable.
Jim C March 23, 2015

I am not sure what 200 more publicly subsidized rental units have to do with promoting or preserving Asian culture.
thackerspeed March 29, 2015

It's like there's a primordial slag pit somewhere, and it's the source of false compassion. Generation after generation of people raised there, in the same communal house of mirrors, eventually found their way to Tacoma. They were greeted by others like them who also believed in ascription, and that honesty is for suckers. Their foolish thoughts and bad habits spread by imitation. We know them by their deeds---Gaming the system with a smiley face.