Waterfront property is a hot commodity in short supply, but not when cities look at old sites in new ways. After 20 years of tolerating an agonizing eyesore, the city of Tacoma, Washington launched a successful redevelopment of its contaminated and deserted waterfront, reclaiming the area for its citizens and bringing economic development to a destitute part of downtown.

For over a century, the Thea Foss waterway, an inlet off Commencement Bay, was railroad property and a busy maritime center. The waterfront evolved as commerce changed over time, from mining to flour milling to chemical refineries, each new industry leaving behind its legacy of contamination. Yet by the 1970s, the businesses were gone and all that remained of the formerly bustling waterfront were decay and pollution. In 1981, the EPA designated the waterway part of a larger Superfund site. ...

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