Construction begins on 40th St. theater, market

While students were away on summer vacation, work on Hamilton Square proceeded on schedule and the complex is still expected to be finished by the spring of next year. Over the summer, parts of the strip mall on the 200 block of South 40th Street was demolished, including the portion which once housed a Burger King. According to Tom Lussenhop, the University's top real estate official, work at the site will soon enter the next phase, involving the erection of a physical plant. Once completed, the intersection of 40th and Walnut streets will see the first of the Robert Redford-affiliated Sundance Theaters, featuring eight movie screens and showing mostly independent movies. The complex will also have many other amenities, including a restaurant, a tapas bar, a video library and a lecture hall. Across the street, an 800-car parking garage will sit atop a new fresh food market, a longtime need on Penn's campus. The exteriors of both buildings were designed by the firm of Boston-based architect Carlos Zapata and the new buildings will make extended use of glass. He said he hoped that the facility will be a "a much warmer type of building." The project has received an enormous amount of local attention because of its potential to radically change the nature of the 40th Street corridor. Penn officials have described the Sundance project as a "catalyst" that will encourage more economic development on the western side of campus. "Newsworthy in itself is that there [have been] no hitches for an urban construction of this magnitude," Lussenhop said. Unlike projects such as the construction of the high rises in the late 1960s and 1970s, which saw the University move ahead with its plans despite complaints from the surrounding community, University officials say they have learned their lessons. The community has been heavily involved in all phases of the Hamilton Square project. "Many in the community feel [that Hamilton Square] will really re-energize and reconstruct 40th Street and that it will have a greater life and purpose than it had in the past," Director of Community Relations Glenn Bryan said.