July 1, 2003
Historic Japanese Language School building could be leveled in late fall
TACOMA, Wash. — The University of Washington, Tacoma has announced plans to pull down what remains of the historic Japanese Language School building and hopes the news of this decision will generate ideas for how best to preserve the heritage of the school, which with Tacoma’s Japan Town became a casualty of World War II.
Although still standing, the historic wooden structure known as the Japanese Language School is already gone. So reads the report of a consultant hired to analyze the feasibility and cost of rehabilitation, as well as to explore alternatives. While the building, which in Japanese was called Nihon Go Gakko, could be reconstructed for an estimated $3 million, the result would be a copy lacking the historic integrity of a rehabilitated building.
“We are about saving buildings, not knocking them down. This is a difficult situation for us,” says Sandy Boyle, vice chancellor for finance and administration at UW Tacoma.
The University would be willing to negotiate a long-term lease with someone who wants to invest in reconstructing the building. Past efforts to find a tenant have failed.
The building, located in the 1700 block of Tacoma Avenue South, a relatively barren stretch featuring a few commercial and residential buildings and several vacant lots, will likely be taken down late this fall once the necessary processes are completed.
The study by BOLA Architects of Seattle was commissioned after the City of Tacoma labeled the building a safety hazard.
BOLA, a firm known for its expertise in historic preservation, assembled a team that included architects, landscape architects and a structural engineer specializing in preservation. The team concluded that, due to the extent of damage and deterioration, rehabilitating the building would be costly and have questionable historic preservation benefit. Although the frame and foundation are solid, the roof, walls and floors of the wooden building have rotted beyond repair. Rebuilding the school does not appear feasible. Instead, the team recommends the University focus on heritage projects to preserve the memory of the building in the context of Tacoma’s Japan Town, establishing a commemorative garden and other interpretive displays.
“We have spoken with several leaders in the local Japanese community and have found support for removing the building and commemorating it with a memorial garden,” says Boyle.
BOLA recommends salvaging intact elements from the building and plants from the landscape and assembling them in an interpretive exhibit or a commemorative garden.
“A commemorative garden is an option to preserve the heritage of the building and Japan Town that could result in some poetic and compelling explanations of the unique history of the property,” says architect Susan Boyle of BOLA (no relation to Sandy Boyle.) “The building doesn’t convey the history as thoroughly as would an annual conference focusing on the Tacoma Japanese-American community, or a thoughtful commemorative garden, or some other method of preserving and sharing the heritage of what happened here.”
Planning for that is already underway. This summer, when a group of former Japanese School students, now in their 80s, gather in Tacoma for a reunion, UW Tacoma plans to interview them to capture oral histories.
Over the next few months, efforts will be made to salvage the few remaining parts of the building that recall its use as a school. These may be reused, either in other historic projects or in heritage or commemorative displays. Already, a calligraphy-teaching chart removed from the school is displayed on campus, and some additional printed artifacts have been moved to a UW library. UWT is also considering other heritage projects.
The Union Station Historic Warehouse district was a dilapidated, inner-city neighborhood before UW Tacoma decided to transform the sturdy, century-old warehouses into a modern university campus. The campus property extends northwest from the former railroad depot to include what was formerly part of the city’s Japan Town. Today, UWT is packed with students and is widely credited with fueling development of a thriving museum, education and retail district that’s attracting urban housing and tourists back to downtown.
UW Tacoma received national awards from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the American Institute of Architects for the rehabilitation of other buildings in the Historic Union Station Warehouse District, a section of town along Pacific Avenue that originally blossomed at the terminus of the second great transcontinental railroad, located in Tacoma during the 1870s.
Founded in 1990 with 176 students, UWT moved to its permanent campus in 1997 and today serves 2,000 students. The campus fills 15 acres on the eastern end of its campus footprint along Pacific Avenue. It will likely be decades before the campus builds up around the Language School site, which is on the western edge of the campus.
Several blocks up a steep grade from the current UWT campus, the language school was at the heart of a bustling Japan Town before World War II. Built in 1922 with an addition in completed in 1926, the school was a place for Japanese children to study language and Japanese culture.
During the war, the building was used to gather people of Japanese descent before sending them to internment camps. Unlike other urban centers, where Japanese communities returned and thrived, downtown Tacoma saw few of its Japanese return.
Since the war, the Japanese Language School has, for the most part, remained vacant.
UW Tacoma acquired the language school property in the early 1990s as part of its program to purchase land within the 46-acre “footprint” the campus will eventually inhabit. At that time, a study was commissioned to evaluate the building’s potential, and tenants were sought with no success. Also in 1993, the University received approval from the Tacoma Landmarks Commission to remove the building but did not act. When the City of Tacoma notified UWT the building was a hazard in 2001, the Preservation Commission re-approved the original motion to demolish the building and create a commemorative garden. In 2002, UWT commissioned the BOLA Architects of Seattle to explore alternatives to tearing the building down.
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