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LISA MULLINS: I'm Lisa Mullins, and this is The World. Beirut is an old city, a really old city. It's been inhabited for the past 5,000 years. Just about every time somebody tries to build on the Lebanese capital, they bump into ancient ruins. And that has lead to some ugly disputes between preservationists and developers. But as Ben Gilbert reports, the two sides may have found a compromise.

BEN GILBERT: Assad Safe drove an ambulance through Lebanon's Civil War. In those days, the National Museum of Antiquities sat on Beirut's green land, a barbed-wire no man's land between opposing militias. One day, in 1990, Safe was driving across when –

ASSAD SAFE: We had heavy shooting on us. We didn't know where it came and the only solution I could find to get out of the shooting is to drive on the stairways of the National Museum. And I said to the guys, “I'm ready to go break a sarcophagus if it needs to save my life.”

GILBERT: These days, Safe's job involves saving ruins rather than lives, and he sits in an office in the same museum that he took shelter behind nearly 20 years ago. Safe is head of Archeological Research at the Lebanese Director and General of Antiquities. He's charged with protecting his country's ancient heritage, just as Beirut's developers build hundreds of luxury high-rises.

SAFE: We value things by their heritage and cultural value; they value things by their investment and money value and, well, it's very different way of seeing things.

GILBERT: And it often brings conflict. Just about every time a builder starts digging in downtown Beirut, archaeological remains are uncovered. This is the site of what will be a 23-story luxury high-rise building called Saifi 616, For now, there's just a huge hole in the ground. At its center sits the largely intact remains of a 2000-year-old Roman Bathhouse. Site coordinator Fabi Vino says its just one part of a massive ancient building.

VINO: The building is monumental. When I say “monumental”, it goes for about 10,000 square meters.

GILBERT: So that's about 30,000 square-feet, something like that.

VINO: Yes. 33. So it's huge.

GILBERT: So far, the dig has turned up a 20-ton marble fountain, a giant mosaic, and prehistoric stone tools. Under Lebanese law, developers can't proceed until an archeological site is excavated and the government can seize property if the find is deemed historically important. That happened recently when a developer uncovered a Roman hippodrome not far away. But Vino says a compromise has been reached at Saifi 616. The Roman bath, the mosaic, and other parts of the old Roman structure will be installed in main lobby of the new luxury building.

VINO: That way we will put explanations and photographs of what used to be in this area and this way, we will have found a compromise to preserve the history of the space.

GILBERT: But how do the investors feel about all this compromise?

SAMIR BAY: Bad feeling. Believe me, bad feeling.

GILBERT: That's Samir Bay, the Project Director for Saifi 616's developer, Masala. Bay's company is pay for much of the excavation, at a cost of around $600,000 and it's delayed his
project by 15 months. He calls the situation “catastrophic”, but then he says having the Roman bath and mosaic in the lobby of the building might add a little charm and maybe even some value.

BAY: When you go inside the building, maybe you feel you are in the museum. It's very, very important and very luxury. Very elegant.

GILBERT: Archaeologist Assad Safe says he sympathizes with the plight of developers and investors, but he says the compromise for Saifi 616 will help both sides. He wants this site, and 11 others nearby, to become a kind of walking museum -- complete with panels and pictures documenting the ancient history of the area.

SAFE: Memory is usually very short in this country, so what we are trying to do is that when we preserve this special memory, future generations will pass by, will look at the panels and will say, “Oh yes. This is our history. This is our heritage.”

GILBERT: But visitors may only be able to catch a glimpse of the old Roman bath and the mosaic inside the new luxury high-rise. Samir Bay says public access to the lobby will ultimately be decided by the building's tenants. For The World, I'm Ben Gilbert, Beirut.

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