Since that day, the complex, the largest development proposed in many years for the hard-bitten streets of North Philadelphia, has been stalled by a standoff between city and university officials. And the complex, known as the Apollo of Temple, has become a lightning rod for a debate over the extent of responsibility that a powerful university has to its neighbors.

The standoff has pulled in the State Legislature and the Governor and has prompted Temple to threaten to move more of its operations to the suburbs. The dispute has also underscored the detrimental effects of a long, acrimonious rift between two of the city's most dominant leaders: Temple's president, Peter J. Liacouras, and the City Council president, John F. Street, a Temple law school graduate whose district includes the 111-year-old public university.

After negotiations over the last year, the university and the city have agreed that Temple will provide the $5 million to rehabilitate housing in the neighborhood, raising the total price tag of the project to $85 million. But the sides remain at loggerheads over who should control the housing fund, the university or a neighborhood group.

Despite the promise of more than 400 construction jobs and some permanent jobs for local residents, Mr. Street has led the opposition to Temple's request for the zoning variance. He is demanding that the $5 million for the housing program be given to an autonomous neighborhood-controlled development group.

"We get the housing under the terms we want and Temple will get the zoning," Mr. Street said in a recent interview.