For more than 50 years, has been the heart of Denver’s Japanese community. Its temple, shops, public art, and gathering spaces are a visible reminder of a history that once extended beyond the neighborhood.
Now, leaders behind the last remaining block of the city’s historic Japantown are seeking funding they say will determine whether Sakura Square is preserved and revitalized or slowly lost to history.
In October 2025, Sakura Square leaders applied for funding from the , which oversees a $570 million voter-approved fund, to aid the block’s redevelopment goals.
The DDA application, obtained through a public records request, highlighted a proposal designed to strengthen the block’s role as a cultural anchor while reversing decades of physical deterioration.
So far, the city has designed to reshape downtown Denver. Now, with roughly $404 million still available, Sakura Square is among more than 80 applicants hoping to secure a share of the next round of funding.
In December, Laura Swartz, the city’s Communications Director for the Department of Finance, told The Post that about 25 applications were under review and approximately 48 applications were denied for DDA funding
Approved projects range from $30 million to activate Civic Center Park, to $17 million for an office-to-residential conversion of the historic Symes Building and $640,000 to expand and relocate Milk Tea People.
For Sakura Square, these investments represent an opportunity to reinforce its presence and significance in the city.
“It’s about the legacy, but it’s also about the present and the future,” said Nozomu Tim Higashide, Sakura Square’s CEO, who leads operations and strategic planning for the square.
“We already exist. We’re not trying to build something new. We’re trying to enhance and preserve and then evolve what we already have.”
Sakura Square is home to the Tri-State/Denver Buddhist Temple, Pacific Mercantile, a structured parking garage, a variety of shops and services and Tamai Tower, a 199-unit apartment building originally developed as deed-restricted affordable housing.
The block hosts major cultural events such as the Denver Cherry Blossom Festival and Spirit of Japan, drawing tens of thousands of visitors annually. Yet behind the celebrations, the decades-old structures are showing signs of aging.
Outside, scaffolding holds up a crumbling concrete barrier near the plaza, while inside, the temple struggles with a broken boiler and minimal insulation. These signs of wear are more than maintenance issues; they are a warning that a cherished piece of the city’s history could be lost.
“We have 50-plus-year-old buildings. The temple is from 1947, so the aging infrastructure and the cost of upkeep is really becoming unsustainable for us in the community,” Higashide said.
With DDA funding, Higashide said Sakura Square could continue as a vital “third place” in downtown, honoring Denver’s Japantown legacy while welcoming new generations. Sakura Square can mirror the success of other cultural destinations, like Seattle’s Chinatown, where 76% of spending comes from non-residents, driving regional visitation and sustaining Downtown vibrancy.
Without investment, he said, the city risks letting an irreplaceable cultural district slip into permanent decline, a .
Outlined in their DDA application, Sakura Square leaders are seeking $30 million in funding to support a redevelopment effort that will preserve the site’s historic and cultural significance through a new temple and cultural community center, expanded cultural retail, and an outdoor public plaza at 19th and Lawrence streets.
The proposed project calls for rebuilding the over 77-year-old Tri-State/Denver Buddhist Temple and Pacific Mercantile. Altogether, the plan includes about 46,500 square feet of improvements, consisting of two multi-story buildings that will house a Buddhist temple, upper-level flexible educational and community spaces and ground-floor cultural retail, including a new home for Pacific Mercantile that flanks an outdoor public plaza.
The buildings and plaza will also feature designs, art and signage to tell the story of the Japanese American community in Denver while also providing a place for people to gather, learn, celebrate, shop, and dine.
DDA funding specifically will be used to build the temple, the plaza and the cultural retail elements of the project. DDA funding will also subsidize tenant improvements and rents in the TCC to support legacy businesses and small, culturally appropriate retailers to create a unique retail environment downtown.
Across the country, cultural districts have proven consistent foot traffic, supporting resiliency through market ups and downs. In 2023, approximately 8.5 million people visited L.A’s Little Tokyo, and over half of them were repeat visitors. On average, individuals come to Little Tokyo 2.33 times per year, and about one-fourth, or 2.1 million people, travel over 50 miles to get there, according to Sakura Square’s DDA application.
“We want to be here, but we could be displaced, and that’s not what the community wants. That’s not what we want,” Higashide said.
A safe haven for those displaced
Japanese people have lived in Colorado since the late 1800s, according to 76-year-old Charles Ozaki, a Denver native who serves as board chair of Sakura Square LLC. He said many worked as railroad laborers, coal miners and on major projects such as the Moffat Tunnel, while others worked on farms or established their own. By the early 20th century, Japanese immigrants opened restaurants, beauty salons, grocery stores, hotels, and other businesses in lower downtown Denver.
In 1916, the Tri-State/Denver Buddhist Temple, also known as the at the time, was founded at 1950 Lawrence St. The church moved several times within lower downtown, including a period in Mattie Silks’ former “House of Mirrors” bordello, before building its current temple at 1947 Lawrence St. in 1947.
However, , anti-Japanese hysteria spread across the United States. Japanese Americans were targeted and stripped of their civil rights.
On Feb. 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt allowing the military to remove anyone considered a threat to national security from the West Coast and place them in inland relocation centers. By the end of World War II, more than 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans were incarcerated.
People living in Washington, Oregon, California, and Arizona were and property and were sent to 10 internment camps in Arkansas, Arizona, California, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado.
Despite widespread hysteria, Colorado Gov. Ralph L. Carr welcomed Japanese and Japanese Americans to the state and was the only elected official to publicly denounce the imprisonment, even though he faced backlash. However, the U.S. government still built the Granada Relocation Center, also known as Camp Amache, in Colorado.
Over 10,000 people, most American citizens, were incarcerated at Amache until 1945.
The site is now known as Amache National Historic Site and was officially established as a National Park Service unit on Feb. 15, 2024.
After the war, Ozaki said many Japanese who had been incarcerated in the camps moved to Colorado, because of the welcoming attitude of Gov. Carr, including his own family.
He said his family lived in the Curtis Park/Five Points neighborhood alongside Black and Mexican families, as redlined areas were the only places they were allowed to live.
He said Japanese businesses once lined several blocks of Larimer, stretching into these neighborhoods, with about 30 Japanese-owned grocery stores in the area. At one point, Ozaki’s family ran a grocery store named T.Y. Market at 27th and Larimer.
“My family they weren’t from this community. They came from out of this community into this community, and it was a safe haven for them, and it’s been that way ever since for all my brothers and sisters and my wife and my kids,” he said.
Ozaki said Japantown was concentrated around the Buddhist temple. It was where Joni Sakaguchi, board president of the Sakura Foundation, and Randy Matsushima, board president of the Tri-State/Denver Buddhist Temple, spent their Sundays with their families. As they grew up, they walked the block, shopped at local stores, visited friends, and attended temple services.
“This is where we’d go for special occasions, to attend services at the temple, if you could find a seat in there,” Matsushima said as he laughed, remembering just how crowded the temple could get.
However, in the 1960s, the community faced new pressures. The Denver Urban Renewal Authority’s voter-approved aimed to redevelop 30 blocks of lower downtown Denver between 20th Street, Speer Boulevard, Larimer and Curtis Streets.
The project was planned to , to attract new businesses and promote economic revitalization. The Buddhist temple was directly in the path of the project, threatening its displacement.
Rather than leave, community leaders rallied to defend the site, leading to the creation of Sakura Square and Tamai Tower on the block bounded by Larimer, 20th, Lawrence and 19th Streets. When Sakura Square opened in 1973, it became the heart of Denver’s Japanese community.
A childhood measured in temple steps and grocery aisles
Sakura Square has weathered decades of change, yet Pacific Mercantile, a woman-owned Japanese grocery, has long formed the heart of Sakura Square alongside the temple. For over 80 years, it has supplied Denver with Japanese and Asian specialty foods, fresh fish, produce, and carefully chosen gifts.
A giant mural of a woman holding sugar beets stretches across the side of the building, a vivid tribute to the Japanese farming community’s history woven into the square.
Inside, customers and visitors are often welcomed by owner Jolie Noguchi. With her short bob haircut, square-framed glasses, and warm, wholesome demeanor, she greets regulars and longtime friends with hugs, embodying the family-run spirit of the grocer itself.
“We have so many great memories of growing up, my mom would take me to work, you know, and I would be in my bassinet in her office,” Noguchi said.
Pacific Mercantile was , George Inai. The store was originally located on Larimer and 20th streets before relocating in 1973 to its current home at 1925 Lawrence St.
Noguchi said her grandfather initially wanted to call the grocery Nippon Market, but Gov. Carr advised against the name, believing it might discourage American customers from shopping there.
She said remembers the early days of the store with fondness, where she would run through the aisles with her brothers, back when the floors were wooden, and the air carried the scent of sushi and oden (type of fish cake dish) her grandmother prepared in the back.
She said some of her favorite memories are from the stockroom, where burlap sacks of rice became a child’s Mount Everest, stacked high and ready to be climbed, a playground hidden behind shelves of groceries.
Now entering its fourth generation of ownership, the legacy is set to continue. Noguchi said her daughter, Alyssa, will carry the grocer forward, ensuring it remains not just a store, but a living piece of Sakura Square’s history and true labor of love.
“I think of my grandfather literally every day,” Noguchi said.
“When she came to me with that (decision), I literally cried. She is our next generation. She’s gonna carry on her great grandfather’s legacy.”
Higashide said Pacific Mercantile, the temple and the statues in front of the square all show why Sakura Square must be preserved. It represents the tight-knit community, the enduring spirit of Japanese culture and the generations who return to honor and share the block’s history.
He said they are in discussions with the DDA team and hope conversations progress, but they have not yet heard whether their application will be approved.
The next DDA board meeting will be on Tuesday, Jan. 27. At this time, applications for projects in the business incentives category and arts, culture and activation category are temporarily on hold, according to the DDA website. They will not be accepting applications until the next phase of the program launches, which is expected in March.
But Higashide and the community members committed to protecting Sakura Square remain determined to preserve its legacy for the future.
“This is our home, and we don’t want to be anywhere else. This is where we want to be,” he said.
