COLUMBUS — Greg Davis remembers when he scrawled his name on the wall of the popular South Heidelberg bar, as did so many of his Ohio State University classmates in the '70s.

        A few years ago, he was touched as he watched another alum show off his own South 'Berg signature to his son following a football game, proud to have been part of the tradition in a basement bar that since has changed names numerous times.

        Still, Mr. Davis was happy to see that bar and surrounding buildings begin to fall Wednesday to a wrecking ball painted to look like a buckeye. Now a 50-year-old Columbus code-enforcement officer, Mr. Davis has watched the south campus area deteriorate over the years.

        The run-down area at the edge of Ohio State, once flourishing with bars and rental housing, is being torn down as part of a three-year, $100 million redevelopment project, dubbed the University Gateway Center and touted as the main entrance to campus.

        Ohio State President William E. Kirwan and Mayor Michael B. Coleman boast that the project will become a national model for urban redevelopment.

        “This is one of the most significant urban community redevelopment projects in the country in terms of its magnitude — it's worth over $100 million in investments — but also in terms of the partnership,” Dr. Kirwan said. The university, city, state and private entities formed Campus Partners in 1995 to buy the land and redevelop the area, he said.

        Some students, such as Ashley Allison, 19, of Youngstown, already talk about how great it will be to bring their children back to what they believe will be a beautiful entrance to campus. But they lament that it will not be finished until after most of them graduate.

        “We're suffering the brunt of all the construction, and we don't get to have the fun when it opens,” said Ms. Allison, who expects to graduate in 2004. “In a few years, we'll be proud of the place we graduated from.”

        In the meantime, she and other students complain that the project cost them some of their favorite haunts and led to increasingly out-of-control street parties, including several on April 21 that led to 26 arrests, because students have nowhere else to go on south campus.

        Dr. Kirwan expects that the redevelopment will help quell problematic parties and crime in the surrounding neighborhood.

        The University District, a 3-square-mile area around campus, has had the city's highest crime rate, except for homicides, during the past 10 years.

        Greg Travalio, an associate dean at the College of Law, said the crime has become so bad that many students will not come at night to the law school, which is adjacent to the redevelopment area. Evening events are impractical and crime is hurting recruitment, he said.

        Vince Boeh, 26, a 6-foot-3 senior from Bridgetown, has lived in an apartment in the area for four years, but he said he tries to “play it smart.”

        “I won't walk these streets by myself at night. Size doesn't matter with knives and guns.”

        The rejuvenated commercial area could spur improvements in the surrounding neighborhood by drawing crowds, improving lighting and encouraging other property owners to spruce up rentals and businesses.

        The project should be completed by summer 2005.
       

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