For two decadesthe massive Sutton Towers apartment complex glowered over Collingswood like the crumbling castle in a bad vampire movie.

By the mid-1990s, more than half of the 1,000 units were vacant. The owner was bankrupt. Fire and building-code violations kept stacking up.

"When the largest taxpayer in the town is that rundown," said Mayor M. James Maley, "it's a threat to the entire community."

Borough leaders responded with a high-stakes gamble: an $8 million bond - roughly equal to Collingswood's budget - that they used to buy a 45 percent stake in the complex.

"They collectively held their noses and jumped off the bridge," said John Kane, the community development coordinator. "It could have failed."

It didn't. Eight years later, the 10-story towers are renovated and 90 percent occupied. The borough even expects to make a tidy profit on its investment.

More important, the turnaround "changed people's perceptions," Maley said. 

Collingswood is undeniably on the way up. Nearly 70 new, often trendy businesses have opened in the last four years, giving the town the panache of a bohemian 'burb - where, Maley says, "Mayberry meets Manayunk."

Behind that are marketing, legions of volunteers, and strong political leadership. But what has set Collingswood apart is its willingness to borrow big in order to spend big on public-private development deals.

In addition to the Sutton Towers project, it issued a $1.7 million bond in 1997 to renovate the neglected Zane School in the heart of downtown. During the summer, the borough signed a 50-year lease with the owners of the historic Scottish Rite Auditorium, then floated a $5 million bond to restore its faded glory.

These renewed properties have become powerful revitalization engines, luring business owners such as Nancy Johnson, who this fall moved her home decorations store from a Marlton strip mall to a restored Woolworth's a block from Zane.

"We have a lot more walk-ins now," she said. "People can go to a really cool little coffee shop, have a great lunch, do some shopping - that old-town feel."

Up next is a borough-led conversion of a four-acre lumberyard near the PATCO High-Speed Line station into a transit-friendly mixed-use development. There also is talk of a multistory parking lot downtown, and a new Borough Hall.

"People are always looking for a grant, looking for some help from the state," Maley said. "You've got to just go do it. Float the bond. Take a risk."