Two years after students were supposed to begin enjoying independent films and lounging around the tapas bar at the Sundance Cinema at 40th and Walnut streets, all the pieces needed to complete the project seem to have finally fallen into place.
On Thursday, the University Trustees gave the OK to a further $13 million investment into the project in an effort to seal the deal with National Amusements, the company Penn is currently in negotiations with to operate the theater when and if it is completed.
We hope this deal will in fact come to pass, and that the embarrassing, infuriating saga of the construction site once known as the "future home of Sundance Cinema" will finally end. Indeed, with this last hurdle cleared, there can be no more excuses. It is time to get it done.
In an interview last month with The Daily Pennsylvanian, outgoing Executive Vice President John Fry intimated that if the University could commit to spending more money, a deal could be brokered before his departure this summer.
That money in hand, Fry, the primary mover behind the original theater deal and still the project's administrative point man, must do whatever it takes to make that deal a reality.
Of course, there have been promises made and promises broken from day one on this project, and there is no guarantee that the deal we have been waiting a year and a half for will actually happen this time, as it has not happened so many other times.
That said, we are hopeful that this marks the beginning of the final chapter in the theater debacle, and that is does in fact open early next semester, as Fry now projects.
And as the students who were freshmen when the cinema was initially scheduled to open become seniors, we can only hope that it will be worth the wait.
