Tacoma center serves 2,000 people daily. It’s moved while building new $18.5M facility
The Asia Pacific Cultural Center temporarily moved its home to East Tacoma while its new $18.5 million facility is constructed.
APCC moved almost all activities and programs to its temporary facility at Portland Avenue Community Center and opened it doors there May 31.
APCC is a nonprofit founded in 1996 that offers programs and services that promote awareness, understanding, equity and inclusion of the Asian and Pacific Islander people, according to the Asia Pacific Cultural Center.
The center offers youth, mental health, business-and-community and cultural programs.
For its new building, APCC will use $8 million in government funding and $10.5 million from private donations and money collected through fundraising.
APCC board members also created a fundraising campaign for the new building project with a goal of raising $80,000. The nonprofit also created a general fundraiser, “One Heart One Home New Building Campaign” in an effort to raise another $150,000 needed to fund the project.
APCC is building a new facility because it has outgrown the current building and can no longer support programs and events there.
“We’ve never owned a home, so we want to own it and do it our way, build it our way so it will look like us and it will serve the needs of our community and at large,” APCC executive director Faaluaina Pritchard said.
The new facility will be built on the footprint of the current facility at South Park Community Center. It will be twice the size and include an auditorium that seats 400-500 people, an art gallery and a demonstration kitchen.
The current facility serves more than 2,000 people everyday, but the new facility would increase the number of people that could be accommodated by about 25%, according to the Asia Pacific Cultural Center.
APCC has partnered with Metro Parks Tacoma since 2012 when it began leasing the South Park Community Center. It has transitioned into a longer lease that will allow APCC to own the new building on land owned by Metro Parks Tacoma, Pritchard said.
Metro Parks Tacoma provided APCC with the temporary facility, so that it would be able to continue providing services while the new facility is being built.
“Providing space to APCC while they build a new home is a natural extension of our longtime partnership and a great example of how working together can better serve the community,” said Metro Parks Tacoma Board Commissioner Michael Liang in a press release.
APCC will continue to hold events and programs at the Portland Avenue Community Center, 3513 Portland Ave. E., with the exception of previously scheduled private events, which will be held at the South Park auditorium through July, according to the press release.
The current building is set to be demolished in August, and construction of the new facility will take one year.
“We’re going to do our very best to serve the Eastside and everyone from there,” said Pritchard. “We’re going to be very, very happy to be with them and learn from them as well, so while we’re there, we want to do as much as we can and when it’s time for us to leave and go back to our new place, we hope to help Metro Parks to not interrupt those similar services for the Eastside.”
