The Ohio State University and the City of Columbus, in cooperation with the neighborhoods of the University District, created Campus Partners for Community Urban Redevelopment in 1995 to spearhead a major initiative to improve the quality of life in those urban neighborhoods. Campus Partners, a non-profit organization with its primary funding from Ohio State, led a community-based planning process in 1995 and 1996 to development a comprehensive improvement plan.

One of the major recommendations in that plan was a proposal to redevelop a blighted area along High Street at 11th Avenue, adjacent to the southern end of the university campus. Again with broad neighborhood and city involvement, Campus Partners in 1997 and 1998 engaged in a more focused process to develop a master plan for High Street in the University District and to define more clearly the size, scope and market potential of the proposed redevelopment project.

Campus Partners in early 1999 conducted a competition among three teams of developers to prepare a design and development plan for the project which has since been named South Campus Gateway. Campus Partners subsequently received support from the university and the city to proceed with land acquisition for the 7.5-acre Gateway site.

Campus Partners completed site assemblage in 2002 and the existing buildings were demolished. The first-phase public improvements were done in 2003, and construction of Gateway began in early 2004, based on the architectural design which emerged from the competition in 1999. Gateway opened in the fall of 2005.