Phoenix has talked about building a Latino Cultural Center for more than two decades, set aside more than $20 million to make it happen, and still has nothing to show for it. No site has ever been built. Now, with city officials signaling they want to restart the stalled effort, South Phoenix artists and community members are asking the same question that has hung over this project since the early 2000s: where is it?
A Quarter-Century of Studies, Committees and Delays
The idea dates back to 2001, when a bond first made money available to study facilities honoring the region's Latino culture, according to ABC15 Arizona. The city didn't complete a full feasibility study until 2017, and a committee that convened in 2019 didn't issue its final recommendations until 2020. Along the way, Phoenix named the project one of its top three cultural priorities and allocated more than $20 million toward it, per the same report.
That funding got a boost in 2023, when Phoenix voters approved a $500 million general obligation bond that set aside money for key arts and culture projects, ABC15 reports. Yet the station notes the Latino Cultural Center project has involved discussions, public meetings, studies and millions of dollars in approved bond funding without ever reaching a built site. District 6 Councilman Kevin Robinson, who chairs the city's subcommittee on economic development and the arts, put it bluntly: “The money is there. The unfortunate thing is people were moving on it, and then it stopped.”
Earlier Attempts Also Stumbled
This isn't the project's first false start. The Phoenix New Times reported that the City Council approved a $70,000 contract with Los Angeles-based consultant Evonne Gallardo back on October 19, 2016, to conduct a needs assessment and feasibility study; that study, finished in 2017, estimated a new center could cost $4.5 million to build. The outlet also noted that available funds had to go toward a capital project — meaning either new construction or renovating an existing building — which limited the city's options.
Gallardo’s report recommended that the center have a highly visible downtown location, and AZ Big Media noted the 2017 feasibility study suggested programming that could include festivals, workshops, classes, storytelling and performances.
South Phoenix Pushes for a New Site
Sam Gomez, who served on the Latino Cultural Center project committee, told ABC15 he hasn't heard about a new center in years — despite the fact that Phoenix, the fifth largest city in the country, has the biggest Latino population in the region. Gomez has proposed the Rio Salado corridor as a site, pointing to the city planning investments already flowing into transportation, development, housing and public space around the river. He argues that South Phoenix's current momentum makes this the right moment to finally build.
Venessa Chavez, a South Phoenix artist, teacher and founder of Southbound Art House, supports bringing the center to the south side rather than leaving it clustered with the museums and galleries that already exist north of the tracks. She wants the facility to function as a community-events space rather than strictly a museum, arguing that such a center would let the community keep creating and stay connected. South Phoenix, she and other advocates note, carries substantial beauty and history of its own — reason enough, they say, for the project to finally land there instead of stalling out again.
What Comes Next at City Hall
Robinson said the project has not moved forward the way he had hoped, and he wants to restart progress rather than let the effort keep languishing. He plans to bring the city's arts department into an upcoming meeting of the economic development and arts subcommittee to get things moving again. His stated priority is getting it right the first time rather than rushing a flawed plan into place.
Phoenix isn't the only city wrestling with the price of building a cultural institution from scratch. In Fort Worth, a feasibility study found that establishing and sustaining a proposed Latino Cultural Museum would require raising between $25 million and $65 million, depending on which of four models — ranging from a 15,000-square-foot mid-level museum to a 30,000-square-foot world-class facility — organizers pursue, according to the Fort Worth Report. That city's leaders said they'd need some level of public funding to launch successfully and floated 2031 as a possible opening if they build on the study's momentum. Dallas, meanwhile, has had a working example for over two decades: its 27,000-square-foot Latino Cultural Center opened in 2003 with public and private funding and now houses theater companies, art exhibitions, and youth and senior programs. For Phoenix, after 25 years of studies and committees, the question isn't whether the vision is worthwhile — it's whether the money already on the books will ever turn into a building.
