Drivers crossing the Am-bridge-Aliquippa Bridge into Ambridge will notice a couple of new sights.

First, there is a large stone fountain gushing waterfalls in the borough park. Then, a block to the east, there is a vast space where industrial buildings are being demolished. A half-block past that is the sparkling new high school, flanked by the rubble that remains of the old high school.

It is a dramatic look at a town in transition.

The high school is a purely public project, funded with taxpayer money. The demolition is part of the Northern Ambridge Redevelopment Project, a private development that is rebuilding about 22 square blocks of the town's industrial sector.

The fountain, meanwhile, is a community project, put together by a grass roots group interested in sprucing things up.

"What we want to do is just grow on the momentum in town," said Ray Fedorko, spokesman for the Committee to Clean and Beautify Ambridge, which commissioned the fountain and raised money for it. "There's a lot of development going on."

The big move in that development is the Northern Ambridge project, now in its third year. Spearheaded by Australian tycoon Rob Moltoni, it will include an industrial/technical sector at its northern end, a commercial area in the middle and a residential section from 14th Street to 11th Street, with shops and offices fronting 11th.

Centria Inc., a steel coatings maker, is in the industrial/technical center, known as the New Economy Business Park. Bill Sutton, who is partnering with Mr. Moltoni, said the plans include three new high-tech office buildings. One will be for Centria's research department and another would house Mr. Sutton's company, Pittsburgh Mineral & Environmental Technology of New Brighton.

Plans are also in the works to acquire the property where the now-closed Foodland is located. It would be demolished so Merchant Street could be straightened out to Route 65, creating a more natural entrance to the town and the business park.

The central part of the plan, from 16th Street to 14th Street, is in demolition. It housed industrial buildings, and Mr. Sutton said 28 underground storage tanks had to be removed, a laborious process involving extensive environmental testing.

One tenant has been confirmed there: Beaver County will build a new home for its emergency services operation including its 911 call center. Mr. Sutton said one of the other tenants will be a grocery store, possibly along with a pharmacy and a bank.

Demolition crews also are working their way in from the south end, from 11th Street toward 14th.

The general plan is for two-story buildings along 11th -- across from the borough building and the new high school and bordering Trinity Episcopal Seminary -- with first-floor shops and second-floor offices. Behind that would be the residential area, with about 60 units and a clubhouse with a pool.

The project will, in a sense, give Ambridge a new heart, removing a mostly defunct industrial area that divided the town.

"We're starting to get people wanting to move back to these small towns, especially with gas prices going up the way they are," he said.

People could live, work and do most of their shopping within the development without ever using a car, he noted, and would have Old Economy Village and the rest of Ambridge all around them as well.

And if the Committee to Clean and Beautify Ambridge has anything to do with it, the rest of Ambridge will be an ever-more-inviting place.

Mr. Fedorko said the committee got its start in 2006 as a group committed to picking up litter.

"Every Sunday we would pick a block and pick up trash and pull weeds," he said.

Under the leadership of founder and president Roberta Sciulli, the group grew to about 30 members, and decided to take on larger projects.

"We're focusing on the gateways into the community," Mr. Fedorko said. "We want it to look nice as people enter." He said they are working on flower baskets and other plantings in those areas.

The fountain, so far, is the committee's biggest project, put together with $10,000 in two grants: $5,000 each from Pittsburgh Connections 250 and Columbia Gas.

Ambridge artisan Robert DeMacio of Indoor Oceans created the fountain out of rough-cut stone piled artfully to look like it was carved by nature. An upper waterfall divides, then divides again into three main waterfalls at the bottom level, so it can be viewed from three sides.

"I tried to build it to look as if it always existed," Mr. DeMacio said, of the fountain, which includes plants. "You don't see any pumps; you don't see any wires. It actually becomes a self-sustaining ecosystem."

Mr. DeMacio said the fountain is a $25,000 project, but he did it for cost.

It includes, he said, about 100 tons of stone, 100 tons of gravel and 10,000 gallons of water, and is actually suspended over a 20-foot-by-25-foot pool of water, which recirculates.