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The Puyallup Tribe of Indians has announced plans to reopen the shuttered ALMA building on Fawcett Avenue in downtown Tacoma as a tribally owned venue called Riverbend Social, with a target opening of spring 2027, according to an announcement the tribe posted September 21 and reporting from The News Tribune.
The 22,000-square-foot building has sat dark since October 2023, when its previous operator, the nonprofit arts and community center ALMA, permanently closed after its main funder, the Wend Collective, withdrew financial support. Before that closure, the building had been known since its 2018 opening as Alma Mater, a renovation of the former Carpenters Union Hall that housed a café, a recording studio, an art gallery, classroom and co-working space, a rooftop patio and a 500-seat performance hall. It was rebranded simply as ALMA in 2022.
ALMA LLC gifted the building to the Puyallup Tribe outright, with the transfer finalized July 28, 2025. The donation drew coverage at the time from The Seattle Times, which described it as a “noteworthy gift” of a Tacoma arts complex. The tribe’s own announcement this week is the first detailed word on what comes next for the space, more than a year after the tribe took ownership.
Riverbend Social will operate under Puyallup Tribal Enterprises, the tribe’s business arm that also runs the Emerald Queen Casino and other commercial ventures in and around Tacoma. Sheila Dillon has been named general manager of the new venue. In comments reported by The News Tribune, Dillon said the renovation will lean toward preservation rather than a gut remodel: “I do want to preserve some of the character,” she said, adding, “I won’t be changing the layout, as opposed to just breathing life back into it.”
The plan calls for a café, a lounge and a performance hall, with renovation work led by Tahoma Construction Services. Work will focus first on the building’s first floor and the fenced outdoor area connected to the performance space; a second-floor renovation is planned for a later phase after the initial opening.
For downtown Tacoma, the announcement lands as one more data point in a long-running conversation about who owns and operates the city’s cultural venues once outside funders step back. ALMA’s 2023 closure was a blow to a scene that had leaned on the building for concerts, art shows, community markets and educational programming since 2018; its shutdown left downtown Tacoma without one of its few mid-sized performance venues. That the replacement is tribally owned marks a shift from the nonprofit-and-philanthropy model that built and then abandoned the space to a tribal-enterprise model with its own balance sheet and its own reasons for keeping the doors open.
The Puyallup Tribe’s footprint in downtown Tacoma has grown steadily beyond its reservation lands and casino operations in recent years, and the Riverbend Social project adds a cultural and hospitality venue to that portfolio in the heart of the city’s arts district. The tribe has not released a construction budget or timeline for permitting, and it is not yet clear whether the venue will retain any of ALMA’s former staff or programming partnerships. The News Tribune’s report does not name a general contractor completion date beyond the spring 2027 target, and neither the tribe’s announcement nor the newspaper’s coverage specifies whether the recording studio or classroom spaces from the Alma Mater era will return in the new concept.
What is confirmed: the building will not sit empty indefinitely, ownership has passed fully to the Puyallup Tribe, and the renovation is now underway under a named general manager and a named construction contractor, more than a year after the property changed hands. Residents who want updates on permitting or a firm opening date will need to watch the tribe’s own announcements or the city’s building-permit records, since no additional timeline has been made public beyond the spring 2027 target.
Sources: Puyallup Tribe News, The News Tribune, The Seattle Times
