University Place

• The Chambers Creek shoreline is the largest stretch of open, walkable public waterfront in this part of Pierce County, and it is county-owned public land rather than a resort.
• Curran Apple Orchard Park is a working heritage orchard kept by a volunteer group — a kind of civic space Tacoma itself does not have.
• Chambers Bay is a public links course on a former gravel mine, and the landscape around it is legible even if you never pick up a club.
• The civic core around Bridgeport Way gives the visit an ordinary, lived-in counterweight: a full-service county library and a long-running family restaurant, not a visitor district.

Best for

A half-day of landscape and civic stops, taken at driving pace

Time needed

Three to five hours; longer if you walk the full Chambers Creek shoreline

Getting around

Between clusters by car or bus; on foot only within each destination

Terrain

Level in the civic core; long sustained grades down to and back up from the water

Transit

Pierce Transit Route 53 and Route 2 serve University Place; there is no light rail here

Distinct from

University Place is its own city, bordered by Tacoma, Fircrest, Lakewood and Steilacoom

See this area on the map →

Start in the civic core on Bridgeport Way, at the county library, and work west and downhill from there. The orchard, the regional park and the golf course all sit between you and the water, and doing them in that order means you finish at the shoreline rather than climbing back to it.

1. Morning

   Begin in the civic core

   The Pierce County Library branch at the Town Center is the most useful orientation point in the city: a full-service civic building with published seven-day hours, which nothing else on this route has. It is also the one stop here that is unambiguously indoors and open in bad weather.

   See the place

2. Midday

   Eat before you head west

   Maria's Cocina Mexicana has been run by the same family in University Place for more than two decades and sits within the same Bridgeport corridor as the library. Eat here now rather than later: there is no comparable sit-down option once you are down at the shoreline.

   See the place

3. Afternoon

   Climb to the heritage orchard

   Curran Apple Orchard Park is a hilltop city park of mature apple trees maintained by a volunteer group, open dawn to dusk on a first-come basis. It takes twenty minutes to walk and is the clearest piece of University Place's pre-suburban history still standing.

   See the place

4. Afternoon

   Walk down through Chambers Creek Regional Park

   This is where the visit stops being suburban. The park is Pierce County-owned and operated but lies physically inside the City of University Place; its meadows, the Soundview and Grandview trails, and the pedestrian bridge to the beach are the reason to come. Allow a full hour, and remember that the return leg is uphill.

   See the place

5. Late afternoon

   Finish above the water at Chambers Bay

   The public links course occupies the ground above the same shoreline. Whether or not you play, the point of ending here is the view back over the Sound and the sense of what a gravel mine became. Treat it as a working golf property, not a park.

   See the place

• Editorial Illustration

  Chambers Creek Regional Park

  Parks

  The reason University Place reads as a destination: county-owned open shoreline inside the city limits.

• Editorial Illustration

  Maria's Cocina Mexicana

  Restaurants

  A family-run Mexican restaurant of more than two decades in the civic core; eat here before heading to the water.

• Editorial Illustration

  Chambers Bay

  Attractions

  A public links course on a former gravel mine, and the high ground above the same shoreline.

• Editorial Illustration

  Curran Apple Orchard Park

  Parks

  A volunteer-kept heritage orchard on the hill, and the clearest surviving piece of the city's pre-suburban history.

• Editorial Illustration

  University Place Pierce County Library

  Attractions

  The civic anchor of the Bridgeport corridor and the only seven-day indoor stop on this route.

University Place is not served by the T Line, and Pierce Transit lists no light rail service to this city. The practical way in without a car is Pierce Transit bus service. Route 53 University Place runs between TCC Transit Center and Tacoma Mall Transit Center, with published stops at 40th St W & Bridgeport Way W, Orchard St W & 56th St S and 66th St S & Adams St; Pierce Transit publishes weekday departures from TCC Transit Center from 05:45 to 21:56, Saturday service from 08:40 and Sunday service from 08:25. Route 2 S 19th St - Bridgeport runs between Lakewood Transit Center and Commerce St Station in downtown Tacoma via Bridgeport Way W and TCC Transit Center, with published weekday, Saturday and Sunday service. Tacoma Community College Transit Center is in Tacoma, just east of University Place. Routes 2 and 53 both serve TCC, connecting the college with the Bridgeport Way corridor and other Pierce Transit services — it is a connection point rather than a University Place destination. Both routes serve the Bridgeport corridor — the civic core, the library and Maria's — and neither puts you at Chambers Creek Regional Park or Chambers Bay. Getting to the shoreline means walking a sustained downhill mile or more from the nearest bus stop, or driving. We do not publish parking advice for these destinations because their operators do not publish capacity or restriction detail we can verify; read the signage at each site. Plan the visit as three clusters — civic core, orchard, shoreline — with a drive or a bus ride between them.

Open University Place on the full Tacoma map

• Chambers Creek Regional Park is owned and operated by Pierce County while sitting physically inside the City of University Place; the park rules you are subject to there are the county's, not the city's.
• Curran Apple Orchard Park is maintained by a volunteer group, and its access statement comes from those volunteers rather than from a City of University Place hours policy.
• Chambers Bay is an operating golf course. Public access to the surrounding county shoreline does not extend onto the course itself.
• University Place is a separate incorporated city, bordered by Tacoma, Fircrest, Lakewood and Steilacoom. Addresses here are University Place, not Tacoma.
• We publish five verified places in University Place. Cutters Point Coffee and other candidates remain unpublished until they clear our evidence standard.

• Tacoma Community College

  Tacoma Community College is in Tacoma, not University Place, but its transit centre is the connection point most bus trips between the two cities pass through.

• Chambers Bay from Tacoma: is the trip worth it?