n September 27, 1997, some 1,200 students converge for the first time on the permanent campus for the University of Washington Tacoma, which opened seven years earlier in a temporary location. Leaving cars parked on side streets, they walk past vacant lots and derelict buildings and enter a new and unique space for downtown Tacoma: a university placed within refurbished industrial buildings. Just five years earlier, the site of these grand but neglected structures was a part of town most people avoided. Now, after an investment of $33 million from the state, five historic warehouse buildings and a former transformer station hold the classrooms, offices, and library of a burgeoning campus of the University of Washington, and nearby storefronts along Pacific Avenue are filling up with shops, cafes, and restaurants to serve the growing academic community.