Tacoma, we hardly know you

TACOMA — To face competition from the world's greatest cities, this region needs every town and hamlet to contribute to the rising fortunes of Puget Sound. Such is the case of the city of Tacoma, ready to thrive in this era of the remodeled American city.

Tacoma's downtown treasures are in its old, brick buildings, some cavernous, some empty, many refurbished and robust. Cities close to water and the thoroughfares of commerce are going to do well in the new century, Tacoma among them with $350,000 condos downtown, art museums, a pub district and new interest from developers.

One good example is the old, ornate Elks Club building, standing in downtown Tacoma like last week's wedding cake. The building sits next to Tacoma's version of Rome's Spanish Steps. The Elks building, now abandoned, may go to Portland developers for a McMenamins resort and pub — just as developers of Portland's Pearl District are working in the city's core.

Tacoma can't be another Seattle or Portland, but there's no reason this city of the industrial age cannot be one of the lively intersections of a region that uses urban centers to string together new technologies and downtown neighborhoods.

Information

www.wiredcityusa.com

tacomadowntown.blogspot.com

Unlike Bellevue, which created a downtown from scratch, Tacoma's history is the avenue toward the future. Red brick buildings are everywhere, causing the city's new hub — the University of Washington — Tacoma — to spread into the local neighborhoods of former dry-goods merchants and industrial trades.

"We see downtown as a sequence of neighborhoods," said Ryan Petty, director of the city's department of economic development. "The old brewery could be a community center with enough space for an outdoor market next door."

Petty, a recent transplant from the flat prairies of Rockford, Ill., says the city is determined to protect the old buildings and reuse them. "The old Union Station was almost torn down," he said. "Now it's the entrance hall to federal buildings." That Pacific Avenue carny row of tattoo parlors or worse is largely gone to museums, walkways and the constant beep of construction trucks.

If I see any place in the region that matches what is going on in Tacoma now, I would say it is closest to Belltown, in Seattle, but 10 years behind. In Pierce County, where one-fourth of the work force leaves the county every day, Tacoma offers the possibility of an urban, residential center to offset the boom in the rural suburbs.

Almost 1,700 residential units were opened between 2000 and 2006 in Tacoma, up from a few hundred. By 2011, there will be more than 8,000 housing units downtown, according to the city's figures, an increase of about 28 percent.

Like Renton, like Bremerton, both much smaller versions of towns remaking themselves, Tacoma has the opportunity of cashing in on the next wave of professional migrants who are heading to the coastal cities of America.

What Tacoma did with its downtown high school should be examined by every urban architect in the region. Blending old and new is what Tacoma is about, not just a fresh start but a new start to an old town.

James F. Vesely's column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: jvesely@seattletimes.com