New partnership may spawn international vision for Tacoma community center

This will be South Park Community Center’s spring.

Thanks to Metro Parks’ wise partnership with Asia Pacific Cultural Center, the historic South Park center will draw a whole new crowd to fresh activities.

South Tacomans are serious about their community centers. Yes, they will get a new regional recreation showcase when Metro Parks opens its STAR Center at 3873 S. 66th St. this spring. But from Manitou to South Park, residents also want to keep the older centers that have served them so well.

Asia Pacific Cultural Center is making that possible at South Park. For the next six years, it will pay $7,000 a month to lease the white clapboard building abutting the park at 4851 South Tacoma Way.

There will be weddings at the gazebo outside, and luaus.

There will be teas, and tea ceremonies.

There will be dances, from hulas to hakas.

APCC has programming there now – Thai and Japanese dance and culture, Korean and Japanese origami, Chinese language and calligraphy. When South Park Center’s traditional activities move to STAR, it will bring more.

“In April, we will take over and utilize it to be active every day, not only for the income stream but to showcase cultural arts,” said Faaluaina Pritchard, APCC’s executive director.

There will be storytelling and woodcarving, she said. There will be martial arts classes and exhibitions. A person could learn to play the sitar, ukulele or drums.

All these classes are going concerns, Pritchard said, and with the center they have the potential to grow.

As they do, the bookings will turn into a revenue stream, she said, and that stream will run uphill to help finance APCC’s grand vision on Tacoma’s hillside Brewery District. Pritchard is leading the capital campaign for a $118 million combination of national pavilions, arts venues, a food court and market, and 75 affordable apartments for seniors and University of Washington Tacoma students. They hope to build it between Tacoma Avenue South and South Fawcett and 21st and 23rd streets.

APCC members aim to raise $1 million from the government or private donors in each of the 47 Asian and Pacific nations. They are tapping into an immigration policy that gives permanent green cards to immigrants who invest $500,000 or $1 million in the U.S. and prove they have created jobs. They expect federal grants and local partnerships to cover the $17 million housing portion.

It’s a project bold enough to have a tinge of chai in the sky about it, even given Pritchard’s successful record as former director of Korean Women’s Association, with its $20 million annual budget.

As home base for the Asia Pacific Cultural Center, the old South Park Community Center has a role in the grand plan far beyond the modest profits from classes and rentals. Sitting between the Port of Tacoma and South Tacoma’s thriving Korean business district, it will be the surrogate for the greater vision.

When APCC invites potential foreign investors, it will be where they see how vibrant our Asian and Pacific Islander culture is. It will be where they are introduced to our artists and business people.

It will be where Patsy O’Connell and Joyce Yoo explain the work that connects young people to their culture and buffers them against criminal activity. It will be home base when supporters from the ports of Tacoma and Seattle, or collaborators from the Seattle Art and Wing Luke museums, meet.

All of that will be in the community center’s spare time as it draws people of all backgrounds to South Tacoma.

Who, after all, would not like to learn to tell a story through the hula, or to arrange cherry blossoms, or stay fit with tai chi? Who would not want to learn how to cook a curry, marinate kimchee, simmer pho or whip up pad thai?

This new life for South Park Community Center may lead to an international vision. If that’s the case, all of Tacoma will be the better for it.

Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677
kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com
blog.thenewstribune.com/street