Investment firm promises $500M in Point Ruston development, including condos
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- TerraCotta projects about $500M in eventual investment for Point Ruston.
- Project viability hinges on added building height, costs and Superfund hurdles.
- Residents press for soil removal plans and accountable oversight.
Officials with a California-based commercial real estate investment firm have big plans for finishing Point Ruston, the luxury mixed-use development that caps a Superfund site.
Several questions remain, including when it would be able to start and what would be done with soil mounds left behind from earlier development.
Representatives of TerraCotta Group attended the Ruston City Council meeting Tuesday, Jan. 20, for a presentation on how they envision Point Ruston on the Ruston side, projecting a half-billion dollars ultimately in investments.
No action on the plans was taken at the meeting. TerraCotta founder and CEO Tingting Zhang instead used the time to introduce her firm and present its ideas.
She quickly sought to distinguish TerraCotta’s plans from earlier development.
“We’re here for the long haul,” Zhang told the audience. “We’re aware there’s a history before us, and we don’t take it lightly.”
Some in the audience remained skeptical.
“We’ve been through this so many times, and we’ve been disappointed before,” one resident said.
Development, legal battles continue
Financing, Ruston city permitting approval, and the courts will determine the ultimate timeline, but for now, empty lots on the Ruston side of Point Ruston remain as reminders of where the original development team left off along the waterfront area, once home to the Asarco smelter facility.
Point Ruston straddles the cities of Ruston and Tacoma, and various parcels have been at the center of debt-collection receivership battles involving the original owner entities (LLCs) created as parcel development progressed with founding developer Michael Cohen and son Loren.
Michael died in 2020, Loren is involved in a new development in Arizona.
The interlocal agreement that was in place with the City of Tacoma for permitting was terminated in 2024, City of Tacoma media representative Maria Lee told The News Tribune in response to questions.
Lee also stated via email that “The City holds approximately $3 million in bonds for various work not completed by Point Ruston, and is in communication with the bonding companies to complete or fund that remaining work in Tacoma and Ruston.”
Meanwhile, TerraCotta Group, which invested in Point Ruston, is among entities collecting on site development debt via receivership. It says it is in the process of acquiring various sites now under contract.
The firm owns more than 83,000 square feet of retail at the luxury mixed-use retail/residential site, with prominent tenants including Ice Cream Social, Century Theater and Farrelli’s Pizza.
On Tuesday, it presented its view of the future to build up the site’s empty lots, bringing new condominiums (and associated parking) with a private club, a grocery store and a new park.
Zhang emphasized the care TerraCotta was taking to bring natural elements into the design, as well as trimming the number of units for the condos and deciding that less density was more appropriate for the site.
“We have a panel of experts, and we’re thinking on a daily basis how to bring architectural beauty, natural beauty, to enhance locations like Point Ruston,” she said.
Land for public use
TerraCotta’s plans along with condo development include turning Point Ruston’s onsite containment facility lot on the west side of Yacht Club Road into “Promontory Park,” 6.5-acre park, which TerraCotta’s presentation noted was in line with the site’s original master plan.
The OCF was designed to permanently store, isolate and manage hazardous waste within the boundaries of the site, and given that, there are limited options for any future use, hence the park plan.
Unfortunately, the containment facility is “a hot potato,” Mayor Bruce Hopkins noted at the meeting.
“Nobody wants it, so it remains in Point Ruston’s name,” he added, with Ruston ultimately seeking to avoid “any of the contamination liability.”
Another presentation slide stated TerraCotta would deed property to Ruston “for use as a Ruston police and/or fire station.” The property, known as 10C, is on the southwest side of the roundabout at North 51st Street and North Baltimore Street.
Remediation remains an issue, particularly with the dirt mound on Lot 10C, referred to by some as “Mount Ruston,” as well as above-grade dirt located on Lot 15 (near the Silver Cloud Hotel) where the condos are planned.
TerraCotta estimates the 125 condominiums planned (down from an original site design of 350) would generate more than a half-million dollars in annual property tax revenue, more than $2 million in annual sales tax revenue, and the private club would generate $600,000 in annual sales tax revenue and an estimated $12,000 in annual B&O tax revenue.
Taken as a whole, TerraCotta said in a presentation slide that it “expects to invest more than $500 million” in the community.
It added, “This level of investment is not only unusual in Ruston; it’s unusual anywhere in the country, at any point in time.”
One audience member credited Zhang and her firm for extending an “olive branch” to Point Ruston businesses on the Tacoma side.
“They did rally behind the businesses to make more accessible and equitable parking at a time that I promise you my business personally was going to close,” said Chyna Willman, owner of Grit City Wellness at Point Ruston. The News Tribune featured Willman in the Waterfront Merchants’ battle over parking fees in 2024. In September of last year, a court order removed parking charges from sitewide common areas including the Point Ruston parking garage.
That change continues to face legal challenges.
Uncertain timeline
The firm stated in its presentation slides at the council meeting that acquiring the lots was subject to court approval of a receiver’s motion to authorize the sale and partial distribution of sale proceeds as part of complex negotiations with the site’s receiver.
According to a Dec. 19 court filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, there remain tens of millions of dollars in liens on the site, including more than $7.6 million owed the EPA for unreimbursed expenses and penalties.
TerraCotta’s presentation stated, “Many factors complicate this development environment,” including the complexities of being a Superfund site, and that development costs “make the project infeasible without additional (building) height.”
There’s also the continuing remediation concerns for the next development phase and leftover soil from earlier work on lots 10C and 15.
More than one person at the Ruston council meeting expressed concerns about what would happen to uncapped soil contaminated with arsenic, lead and other heavy metals, how it would be removed and by whom.
Others were wary of what would come next, pointing to previous development and what they contend was lack of effective environmental oversight.
“This is our home,” one resident said during the Q-and-A session following the presentation, who then requested that TerraCotta “Come back and have a plan that is something that has some sustainability, that we can understand. .... We’re just looking to live our lives.”
