LITTLE TOKYO : Asian Arts Center Signs First Tenants

The first tenants of a $3.4-million Asian arts center to be housed in a historic church have signed a lease, and remodeling of the building is set to begin in November.

Named the Union Center for the Arts, the 9,000-square-foot brick building at 120 N. San Pedro St. will house a community arts organization, a media production company and an Asian Pacific American theater company. A local partnership, headed by the Little Tokyo Service Center, was awarded a 44-year lease from the city last year.

“I think it will help make Little Tokyo and Downtown generally a real vibrant, world-class cultural center that really expresses the diversity of cultures in this town,” said Erich Nakano, project manager of Little Tokyo Service Center.

The lease agreement requires the partnership, which will sub-lease to tenants, to pay $1 a year to the city. In exchange, the group will renovate and seismically retrofit the three-story building. Money for the remodeling project was secured from city and private historical preservation agencies, and a funding request has been submitted to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Because the building is a historical landmark, its design will not be changed during the renovation, Nakano said. But plans call for the construction of an art gallery, a small sound studio, a theater and office space.

The building’s three tenants, all nonprofit organizations, are Visual Communications, L.A. Artcore and East West Players, one of the leading Asian American theater companies in the country. The East West Players signed a 10-year lease earlier this month.

For the 30-year-old East West Players, the move from its current home in a 99-seat venue in Silver Lake to a 235-seat theater makes it one of a handful of mid-size theaters in Los Angeles. The company features Asian Pacific American performers and set designers.

“We’ve been dreaming about this for years and years,” said Luisa Cariaga, a theater spokeswoman. “We will feel like we are in the heart of the city. I think our visibility will become better.”

Built in 1923 and known as the oldest Christian church in Little Tokyo, Union Church is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.