Community members, politicians and business leaders gathered in a muddy clearing to break ground on a first-of-its-kind community center.
The grove of trees didn’t look like much Friday, when officials carefully stepped between rocks and squishy earth at the groundbreaking off of Stone Oak Parkway, but soon it will become the Asian Resource Center of San Antonio (ARCSA).
The new community center will create space for gatherings, education and celebrating culture for San Antonio’s diverse Asian community.
“We’re not just breaking ground for a building, we’re laying a foundation for a vision,” said Elisa Chan, ARCSA’s board president.
ARCSA organized in 2023 and has been raising funds for its Asian Resource Center with its annual Asian Festival, which drew a crowd to Hemisfair in early May.
Construction will start this year on a 10,000-square-foot building with a banquet hall, reception hall, conference room and a garden.
Chan hopes to open the center in May or June of 2027. ARCSA could be expanded after several years with a second phase of construction adding offices and classroom space.
The center will focus on educational and cultural learning, including opportunities for local youth. Chan said that could include cooking classes and arts activities that teach origami, tea ceremonies and the Chinese game mah jong.
Chan said those opportunities would be open to Asian Americans in San Antonio but would also be there for the general public. She welcomed community members from across San Antonio to come to events to talk, eat and learn more.
“The Asian community is very, very diverse,” Chan said. “We don’t necessarily speak the same language, but we’re all American and we all live in San Antonio.”
Chan was born in Taiwan, studied in mainland China and emigrated to Texas in 1988. She and her husband founded a San Antonio-based engineering design firm called Unintech Consulting Engineers. Chan represented District 9 on San Antonio City Council between 2009 and 2013, when she stepped down for an unsuccessful run for state senate.
Kausi Subramaniam, ARCSA’s board secretary, added that it created a collective space that could be used for nonprofits and events. Subramaniam is co-owner of Kalalaya Indian Performing Arts and is president of Anuja SA, an organization that promotes San Antonio’s sister city relationship with Chennai, India.
“We don’t have anything like this in San Antonio,” Subramaniam said. “The Asian community lives in this part of town, in [City Council districts] 8, 9 and 10.”
Subramaniam and Chan said there are also opportunities to address mental health needs and workforce development for Asian Americans.
“We want to provide those resources in a space people can feel safe in,” Subramanian said.
Chan added that ARCSA plans to be self-sustaining. There will be a mix of free and paid programming. There will also be opportunities for other groups and organizations to rent out space at ARCSA.
Philanthropy has played a key role in getting ARCSA to this point, Chan said. H-E-B donated $300,000 and Tim’s Oriental Seafood donated $250,000 for naming rights of rooms in the center and to support the center’s construction.
“It marks the beginning of construction, but it also marks a new beginning for our community,” Chan said.
This story first appeared in the San Antonio Report.