From Center of Worship to Center of Commerce

It seems fitting, or ironic depending on the perspective, that a Lakewood location once the center of teaching and prayer is now the hub of worship to commerce and capitalism.

Such is the case of the Visitation Villa Catholic School site, which is now the location of the Lakewood Towne Center, the city’s central commerce location.

Charles Richardson sold the prairie land turned garden spot in the center of the Lakes District for school use in 1918. Richardson essentially donated the property to the Sisters of the Visitation since there are no records that show money actually changed hands. He had bought the property in 1906 for use as a garden patch that featured flowers and fauna from around the nation. It was called Richmore.

The need for a local Catholic church was apparent around the turn of the last century. Many of the growing area were having to be shuttled to Tacoma for their religious services and prompted the donation.

Rather than limit themselves to a church, the Sisters of the Visitation sought higher goals. They wanted Catholic school as well. Plans for a proposed 100-acre Visitation Academy School by architect Kirtland Cutter were in the works as early as 1919, although the school didn’t open until 1923.

The Catholic girl’s school operated as Visitation Villa from 1923 to 1954, when improvements to public schools chipped away at the need for private school educational programs. The Sisters of the Visitation sold the property in 1955 to a group of local developers who constructed a retail center know as Villa Plaza.

The Visitation Sisters had already moved from Lakewood to a more cloistered life at their place at Federal Way’s Dash Point. That facility has since closed and is used as a community center. The convent currently operates a location in Seattle.

The Villa Plaza meanwhile opened and offered a Liberty House theater, JC Penney, bowling alley and many storefronts to the growing suburban area. The rise of the Tacoma Mall two decades later marked the decline of the Villa Plaza as the commercial hub for south Pierce County shoppers.

A remodel was in store.

That came when Basil Vyzis bought the site in 1985 and spent $80 million to redevelop the Villa Plaza into an enclosed shopping center named Lakewood Mall. His death a decade later and the rise of other malls in South Hill and Hawk’s Prairie affected shopping patterns. The Lakewood Mall went into receivership in 1998 and faced another redevelopment.

Construction began on the Lakewood Towne Center in October 2001 with the demolition of the enclosed mall for the creation of an open-air shopping complex.