Delays plague 40th Street Construction

The construction sites located at the corners of 40th and Walnut streets will remain just that until well into the fall semester. Work on the Sundance Cinemas complex and Freshgrocer.com, a specialty foods market, is still underway. Both were initially scheduled for completion last spring. According to Tom Lussenhop, Penn's top real estate official, Freshgrocer.com, the 31,000 square-foot state-of-the-art market featuring freshly prepared foods, a deli and coffee, juice and sushi bars, will open on November 1. However, officials would not reveal the opening date for the eight-screen Sundance complex, which will include a restaurant, an outdoor cafe, a lecture hall and gardens, among other amenities. Lussenhop said Sundance will determine the opening date and estimated that the theater would open sometime around December. Sundance Film Centers spokesman Adam Schulger said information about the opening will be released after Labor Day. The 800-car parking garage atop the market is currently being used for institutional parking and will be open to the public within the next several weeks, Lussenhop also said. Lauren Schulman, a spokeswoman for the project, said the delayed opening was not expected to affect business for Freshgrocer.com's fall opening. "We are looking forward to a very healthy response from the community," she said. Since being announced last year, completion dates for Hamilton Square have repeatedly been set back. Budget concerns, a city-wide steel shortage and severe winter weather are among the factors that have delayed work on the project. The Hamilton Square project marks the University's largest step in a continuing effort to make the 40th Street corridor a vital commercial center. The corridor runs from Baltimore Avenue on the south end to Filbert Street on the north. University officials hope that the new theater and innovative market will pull in large crowds, drawing people from the University and the surrounding community as well as the entire city. The movie complex is the first in a chain of theaters that Robert Redford, in conjunction with General Cinemas, plans to open. Redford came to campus in the fall of 1998 to announce the ambitious plan. The supermarket will offer international foods and will allow customers to order food for take out via the phone or online. Schulman said that the Web site for doing so will be up and running when the store opens