I hope I’m not dominating the thread, but just wanted to address a few misconceptions.
The Gateway Complex that housed the Ugly Tuna Saloona was built in 2005. Brian disappeared in 2006. The building was brand new. It was not “craggy” or old— at all.
South Campus was a very bad area at that time. There were old buildings that were eyesores and a lot of criminal activity took place in the area.
In an effort to improve things, OSU purchased the old buildings and razed them. The Gateway University District was built in 2005 & probably finished between 2007-2008.
This is accurate, wasn't anywhere near "craggy" in 2017 either. Ugly Tuna smelled kinda gross and the movie theater is maybe slightly below average in terms of it's state of appearance, but definitely not "craggy".
Really to this day, there are some sketchy areas around south campus. To the south and east of Gateway off High St is a lot of cheap low rent housing (The Kroger on 7th was known as "Kro-ghetto"). High St everywhere has been completely revamped since my time there in a continuation of what started with Gateway, but there really were some bad areas over there. Anything past 4th St was notorious for being dangerous.