Prominent Tacoma arts organization to fold. Armory will go up for sale
After 47 years of serving the creative community, the local nonprofit Tacoma Arts Live will close its doors this summer, the organization announced in a news release Wednesday.
The 2025 to 2026 performing arts season will be its last, the release said. After the season ends June 30, TAL will officially close, and its event space, the Tacoma Armory, will eventually go up for sale.
While TAL’s education programs will continue with a new name, other programs will cease following the closure. That includes its performing arts season and events such as Brew 53, Arts in the Armory and Sunday rollerskating at the Armory.
The organization cited a combination of debt with a decline in ticket sales and grants as the reason for the closure.
“What people see is this vibrant space that is packed with people and packed with activity,” said TAL program director Katie Lappier. “But the other side that’s not visible is that for the last five years or so, the organization has been accumulating debt.”
The organization spent the last year and a half trying to cut costs and find alternative funding but was unable to find a solution to the debt.
“Staff have put so much of themselves into this building, into this vision of the Armory as a hub. I’ve emphasized to them that what they have done here is incredible,” Lappier said. “The debt is separate from that, and there’s nothing that any of us could have done … differently that could have addressed that.”
Tacoma Arts Live began in 1979 under a different moniker: The Broadway Center for the Performing Arts. It was originally created by city leaders to manage Tacoma’s Pantages Theater and promote local arts.
Once it began to manage Rialto Theater and Theater on the Square, the organization was managing the largest theater complex between Seattle and Portland, the release said.
Besides managing venues, the nonprofit brought hundreds of national and international performers to Tacoma, created arts-centered community events and developed educational programs.
“Tacoma Arts Live was very different because for the whole 47 years of our existence, our overarching mission has been to build up the arts in our community,” said Lisa Kremer, board chair for Tacoma Arts Live. “Our whole focus has been on building up the arts, not just for our organization, but for many artists and organizations in addition.”
In 2022, Tacoma Arts Live moved to the Tacoma Armory. The venue hosted popular immersive events, programs and performances, even opening its large polished wood floor for Sunday rollerskating.
The sale of the Tacoma Armory will pay off TAL’s debt, and the remaining proceeds will go to help the ongoing education program, Kremer said.
Although the exact future of each of the education programs aren’t clear, Lappier expects many of them to continue, albeit some at a smaller scale.
“What I envision is that our school and after-school programs, our civil rights legacy tour, those kinds of anchor programs, our artist residencies, those will be able to continue,” Lappier said. “We do still anticipate delivering summer camps, but it would be unlikely that they would look the same as they have in the past years.”
One of the newer programs that lacks the funding to continue past the closure is Accelerating Creative Enterprise, a program offering free and low-cost working spaces for emerging BIPOC entrepreneurs.
“[The ACE program] has really become kind of this beating heart of creative activity in our region,” said Tony Gomez, the chief engagement officer of TAL. “One of the hardest things about this change is that clearly, our community needs a space where people can come together in creativity.”
Gomez spearheaded the ACE program, and said that entrepreneurs in the program created 137 grassroots events last year.
“Tacoma has an outsized number of grassroots creative geniuses,” Gomez said. “Even in my conversations with folks in Seattle and other metropolitan areas, people know about that energy that lives in Tacoma. And we need to, as a community, make sure that we can figure out a way that is honored and cultivated in the future.”
