It's been a rough few months on Columbia Avenue.

Since April, the heavily traveled route out of the City of Lancaster has been the scene of seven high-profile crimes, including armed robberies and savage beatings, all within a half-mile stretch between Wheatland Shopping Center and Good Drive.

The latest incident was the brutal assault early this month on a 20-year-old female student at Empire Beauty School in Wheatland Shopping Center. No arrests have been made in the attack, which police say was carried out by a man and a woman in broad daylight, in front of a large crowd of onlookers.

Police and merchants along the busy stretch of road — which also divides East Hempfield Township, on the north side, and Manor Township, on the south side — are puzzled. The crimes don't appear to be connected; police say so many violent incidents clustered in such a small area might be nothing more than an anomaly.

Some merchants aren't so sure. Columbia Avenue, they note, is one of the oldest commercial strips in the county. There's been a demographic change in nearby neighborhoods. Several buildings along the road have fallen into disrepair; blight appears to stalk the corridor. And blight, too often, goes hand-in-hand with crime.

"The area has changed," said one merchant along the corridor, who asked not to be named for fear of angering the landlord. "It's as if the problems of the city are coming this way.

"But there's always been some crime here."

The recent cluster began April 24, when armed robbers held up the Papa John's at 1800 Columbia Ave., on the Manor Township side of the road.

On May 20, there was an armed robbery of the CVS store at 2020 Columbia Ave.

On July 14, an 80-year-old woman was pushed face first onto the cement sidewalk at the CVS and dragged a short distance before the assailant made off with her purse.

On July 18, the Dollar General Store in Wheatland Shopping Center, on the East Hempfield side of the road, was robbed at gunpoint.

On Aug. 6, a man attempting to elude officers with the Lancaster County Drug Task Force struck two detectives with his car near the shopping center before fleeing on foot into the Wheatland Hills/Glenbrook neighborhood, where he was captured.

On Aug. 14, a shot was fired during a holdup outside the Dairy Queen, 1935 Columbia Ave.

On Aug. 22, an Elizabethtown man was beaten unconscious by a gang of about 10 men at Columbia Avenue and Eisenhower Boulevard.

And Sept. 2 came the assault at the beauty school.

In addition, say police, there has been a rash of thefts from vehicles in neighborhoods along this stretch of Columbia Avenue, though these crimes are happening in other neighborhoods, too.

"Things do seem to be heating up," East Hempfield police Chief Doug Bagnoli said. Still, he said there appears to be no connection among the crimes, some of which remain unsolved. The bad economy might be a factor, and "the root of all evil is drugs," Bagnoli said.

Sgt. James Alexander, of Manor Township police, said some of the incidents along the road could be called crimes of opportunity. "Columbia Avenue is just heavily laden with development on both sides of the street, and you've got a number of 24-hour stores like CVS and Turkey Hill," he said.

He's certain the economy is a factor: "We're seeing people who wouldn't have stolen in the past do so now," he said. And the number of robberies has soared. "By June or July of this year, we'd already seen as many as we saw all of last year," Alexander said.

"And people are becoming more bold and brazen."

That's an apt description of the beating outside the beauty school, in which 20-year-old Tahyna A. Jimenez was thrown to the ground and kicked repeatedly in the head and abdomen at around 4:30 p.m..

Bagnoli said last week arrests were imminent in the case.

Some merchants say that, headlines notwithstanding, Columbia Avenue has hardly turned into the Wild West. "We haven't had any problems," said Keith Rutt, owner of Wheatland Distributors, 1701 Columbia Ave. "I can't say I've noticed any problems, or anything different."

But others say they have seen a change, a gradual one in the years since the road became one of the first corridors out of the city to be developed commercially.

Portions of the neighborhoods near the corridor date from the 1940s and 1950s. Columbia Avenue is the site of the county's first McDonald's, built in Wheatland Shopping Center in 1962; it later moved to 1755 Columbia Ave.

This is what planners and preservationists nowadays call sprawl.

Several vacant structures on both sides of the road sport overgrown weeds encroaching on "for lease" signs. On the East Hempfield side, at Columbia Avenue and Good Drive, sits an empty building and cracked parking lot, once an auto repair and sales shop that had been slated as the future site of a Walgreen's drugstore. That plan has been abandoned.

Still, elsewhere are signs of dynamism. The Rita's Water Ice store at 2050 Columbia Ave. does a brisk summer business; the Dunkin' Donuts at 1906 Columbia Ave., open since 2007, also is busy. There are no vacancies in Wheatland Shopping Center, whereas most nearby strip centers have at least one, noted the same merchant who spoke off the record.

"Years ago we had a shoplifting ring come through Lancaster, and you wouldn't have believed the amount of stuff they stole from us," said the merchant. "None of this is new. But we have seen changes in the neighborhoods," as older residents move out and a younger, more diverse group of residents moves in.

"I suppose it's just a cost of doing business."