When the University of Washington Tacoma was born – after a long, hard labor – she was everybody’s baby.

That was back when it was still OK to call it a branch campus, when we were thrilled with whatever the state sent our way in the form of a public upper-division university.

But babies becomes toddlers, and then adolescents. And while we’re still proud of a our academic prodigy, we’re getting a bit worried about what she’s going to be when she grows up.

On Wednesday, in one of the renovated warehouse buildings that are the soul of the campus, the UWT began a conversation about its future. What will it look like in five years, 10 years and 20 years as 3,000 students become 5,000 and 10,000?

Will it continue to be a commuter college or will it transform to a residential model now that it has added freshmen and sophomores?

And as it gets bigger, will it want to assert its independence – breaking the social and physical ties with the city that worked to bring it to life?

One attendee, North End resident Peter Whitley, said the UWT’s “porous borders” are what make it unique. That is, the campus is a part of a seamless neighborhood where visitors might not notice – or need to care – when they pass between the university, the museums, the federal courthouse, the galleries, and the area around the convention center and the old breweries.

That grand question of community is illustrated by a seemingly small decision – whether to close Market Street to north-south traffic so the university can develop a central plaza currently designated as the University Green.

If Market Street is closed, that might serve the UWT in the short run, but it would disrupt the way the school works within an urban neighborhood.

“Having an urban campus, you have to have traffic flow through it,” said Jack McQuade of the Swiss Tavern.

Closing Market might not have been a big deal before the city plopped the convention center over the top of Broadway, before Sound Transit ran light rail up Pacific and parallel parking there was converted to diagonal, and before a condo project was given a lane of traffic on Tacoma Avenue.

It isn’t the UWT’s fault that Market Street is now the only unrestricted north-south arterial downtown. But because the school is last in line, it is the institution that will feel the heat if the street is closed.

The university says it’s open to options. As it replaces a master plan that shows the Green where the street now is, the UWT is sensitive to the potential explosiveness of street closures.

“Initially we planned to close streets, to close Market Street,” said UWT communications director Mike Wark. “We’re going to take a hard look at that. Are there alternatives? What are the consequences of keeping it open?”

Mostly, though, the UWT seems to want the conversation about its future to be about something more than Market Street. It wants the community to begin imagining a university that will continue evolving from its birth as an option for place-bound students.

That might mean dormitories and apartments. It might mean dining halls and recreational facilities. It might mean applied research labs and places for the transfer of technology and innovation to private businesses. It might mean increased cultural opportunities for students, faculty and the community. It might mean more open space and more gathering space. It might mean parking garages and more transit opportunities.

Each needs a spot on what used to look like a big footprint between Pacific and Tacoma avenues and between 21st and 17th streets. Each addition makes that footprint seem smaller.

Want to give them your ideas? Soon the UWT Web site will have a link to pages about the master plan process, including a way to comment. Keep an eye on www.tacoma.washington.edu.

Peter Callaghan: 253-597-8657

peter.callaghan@thenewstribune.com

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