Work set to begin on new 40th St.

Officials are optimistic that the cinema and market will help revitalize the area. With the beginning of construction on the Sundance Cinema complex, a fresh foods market and a parking garage just weeks away, University officials released yesterday the designs of the project they expect to revitalize the 40th Street corridor. The Robert Redford-backed cinema complex will be built on the southwest corner of 40th and Walnut streets and the 800-car parking garage with a market on the ground floor will be located on the northwest corner. Officials said they believe the theater will be a "catalyst" for the area, attracting large crowds that will create more of a street presence in the 40th Street area and encourage further redevelopment of the western side of campus. "The whole notion is getting people back on the streets at all hours of the day," Executive Vice President John Fry said. The plans for the theater complex are hardly ordinary -- besides eight movie screens, there will also be an independently operated restaurant, a tapas bar, an outdoor cafe, an espresso bar, gardens, a town-hall component, a lecture hall and a reflecting pool. "This complex turns a traditional theater design on its head," said Tom Lussenhop, the University's top real estate official. On the Walnut Street side of the complex will be a landscaped outdoor seating area larger than the outdoor area on the 36th Street side of Sansom Common. "The big idea is you come, you see the film and you have the opportunity to hang out afterwards," Fry said, noting that Redford's vision for his theaters includes a place where film lovers can stay to discuss the movie. The gardens will extend around the structure and follow through to Locust Street, in between the complex and the neighboring Rotunda -- a Penn-owned former church that officials said will likely see further development once Sundance opens next spring. Inside the cinema there will likely be a video store that will carry a "focused" selection of independent films and some retail on the upper level that will sell Sundance merchandise, Lussenhop said. The restaurant and coffee bars in the Sundance complex will be operated by renowned Philadelphia restaurateur Stephen Starr, who is also in discussions to open a restaurant in Sansom Common. Starr said that the restaurant in Sundance will be "very much like the Continental," his restaurant and martini bar located at 2nd and Market streets, but declined to comment further because the plans are still in preliminary stages. Starr has been tapped by Redford to operate restaurants in all of Sundance's locations, Fry said. The Fresh Grocer.com, the fresh foods supermarket that will be on the first level of the garage located next to the offices of The Daily Pennsylvanian, will have "everything a regular supermarket has but with an emphasis on fresh foods," said Pat Burns, who will operate the market. Burns owns and operates two other major supermarkets in the suburban Philadelphia area -- Drexeline Supervalu in Drexel Hill and Barclay Square Supervalu in Upper Darby. The market will include an indoor and outdoor cafe -- which will serve beer and wine -- a sushi bar, juice bar and fresh meats, foods, salads and flowers. The outdoor cafe will be located on the Walnut Street side of the market. Burns said that there will also be a World Wide Web site for the market where people can order prepared foods on-line. Two firms, Hugh A. Boyd Architects and Cold Technology, a supermarket planning firm, are working together on the design of the market's interior, Burns said. Boyd has worked on projects including the Market at 30th Street in Philadelphia, the Ardmore Farmers Market and the South Street Seaport in New York City. "We really liked his work and he's in tune with what we want to do," Burns said. The transparent garage above the market will hold 800 cars -- which officials said will go a long way towards alleviating the University's parking crunch. Space will probably be even tighter once the theater and a new dental center opens nearby. The structure of the building will "celebrate what's exciting about a garage," Lussenhop said. Both Sundance and the parking garage/grocery store were designed by Carlos Zapata, a renowned Boston-based architect, and The Moderns, an interior design and graphics firm. Zapata said that the theater's mix of activities -- including a video library and lecture hall -- will help create a learning environment. The library will house books about independent films, filmmaking and script writing, among other subjects related to cinema. And a large lecture hall located in front of the building will be used for directors to come and discuss their films. The building itself is contemporary and not modeled on any other particular style. The mix of materials -- including wood, glass, stone and concrete -- help make it "a much warmer type of building," Zapata said. The project has gained the widespread support of community leaders, who feel that it will spur further revitalization of the 40th Street corridor. Area residents met with the Spruce Hill Zoning Committee in January to discuss the project's impact on the surrounding neighborhood and identified several key concerns that they felt needed to be addressed by the University and architects. Spruce Hill -- the area bordered by 40th and 46th streets from Woodland Avenue to Market Street -- will be directly affected by the project. Barry Grossbach, chairperson of the committee, said that the University and architects were able to meet Spruce Hill Zoning Commission's requests on all but one issue and that the "response was overwhelmingly positive to the concept." "I think that it's clear that the commercial revitalization of 40th Street and the Sundance project, which will help that, is overall a plus for the community," Grossbach said. The plans will be reviewed on Thursday at a city zoning board meeting and officials anticipate they will be approved. Fry and Lussenhop said Sundance will spur a dramatic facelift of the entire western end of campus. While emphasizing that "the University is not going to be the redeveloper of 40th Street," Fry said they expect other businesses will want to open nearby to take advantage of the extra people in the area. Fry speculated that the market would attract 400,000 more pedestrians to 40th and Walnut, while the cinema will attract another 200,000 -- which, coupled with Sansom Common, could make University City a destination spot for Philadelphians, a longtime goal of Fry and University President Judith Rodin. Lussenhop said the retail mix of the area will likely change as leases expire over the next few years. The Hamilton Village strip mall has already seen the departures of Burger King, Bucks County Coffee, University City Nautilus and Cool Peppers. Other tenants include Won's, Smokey Joe's, Unimart, a post office and Fingers, Wings and Other Things.

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