Asia Pacific Center buys Tacoma building

Group will renovate former art museum for cultural center

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Originally published February 15, 2002

TACOMA -- The Asia Pacific Cultural Center is buying the Tacoma Art Museum's 82-year-old downtown building and will start renovating it when TAM moves into its new location in spring of 2003.

Representatives of the cultural center and the museum closed the deal Wednesday for about $1.3 million. The center plans a 15-month, $2.2 million fund-raising campaign to cover the purchase and renovations.

"We are very excited about this," said Patsy Surh O'Connell, center president. The renovation plans include gallery space, classrooms, an auditorium and banquet room, a tea room, teaching kitchens, retail space and possibly a restaurant.

Representatives of the city and the Port of Tacoma helped finance a $50,000 feasibility study that led to the deal.

Tacoma has one of the highest concentrations of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the country. The 2000 U.S. census showed that 9.7 percent of Tacoma's population is at least part Asian, and 1.5 percent identified themselves as at least part Pacific Islander.

But these residents have almost no visibility in downtown Tacoma, O'Connell noted -- unusual among large West Coast cities, most of which have thriving international districts.

Some attribute the low profile to Tacoma's infamous Chinese expulsion, which gave the city a lasting stigma in some Asian communities. In 1885, a mob of Tacoma residents forced more than 200 Chinese out of the city and burned their homes.

Three previous plans to build an Asia Pacific Center in Tacoma have fallen through. The most recent effort, also downtown, was abandoned because of costs estimated at between $9 million and $10 million.

With the acquisition of the former museum, the cultural center can make the move "with only minor changes," said Marcia Golubic, secretary to the center's board. "It was kind of a win-win for everybody."

The four-story building opened in 1921 as the National Bank of Tacoma. It was converted into the Tacoma Art Museum in 1971.

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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