The community’s Town Center vision became a reality this week with the city’s acquisition of an 7.48-acre parcel adjacent to the Performing Arts and Conference Center site.

Together with Town Square Park, we now have 21 acres to create a spark plug for growth and revitalization of Federal Way’s downtown.

On behalf of the City Council, I want to thank everyone in the community who is encouraging and supporting our strategy to revitalize downtown Federal Way. The assembly of these properties — the new parcel, the Performing Arts and Conference Center site, Transit Center property, and the Town Square Park — lays a cornerstone for achieving that strategy.

Citizens tell us they dream of a thriving local economy with a great quality of life, and a place where families want to live, work, attend school and play.

Town Center will be the catalyst for an economic renaissance in the downtown that transforms the core of our city.  We’ll actively recruit investors and new businesses, and we’ll work to retain existing businesses. We’ll create new public spaces and smaller retail spaces along with arts and entertainment venues.

There are, of course, many competing demands for scarce city financial resources. It is important to know that the financing plan for this acquisition assures that no city services will be affected and no taxes will be increased.  It’s also important to know that the city is not in the business of buying or speculating randomly in land. Town Center is unique. City control of the Town Center parcels gives us — all of us as a community — the opportunity to create a catalyst for downtown revitalization — in a planned, coordinated, coherent manner. We expect there will be development, leases, financing and investment in the projects on the sites and elsewhere. Already, we are receiving encouraging inquiries from investors with interest in our plans.

For years, citizens have asked: “When is downtown going to be revitalized?”

The answer is now. Now is the time. We are taking bold action — and prudent risks — to make good things happen As the Japanese proverb goes, “Vision without action is just a daydream.”

We are taking action and we are charting our future.

Acquisition of these parcels is the first step. We’re just getting started. We have a long way to go, much work to do. There will be opportunities for every citizen of Federal Way to play a role in realizing Town Center.

I hope you join us on this exciting journey to the heart of Federal Way.

Jim Ferrell, Federal Way mayor