Ann Taylor Loft and Marathon Grill will be coming to campus this year, filling several of Penn's prime retail vacancies. The restaurant chain will fill the empty spot in the Bridge: Cinema De Lux, now unoccupied for nearly eight months.
University officials announced the arrival of both establishments at a meeting of the University Board of Trustees last Thursday and expect to release further retail information in the upcoming weeks.
Negotiations for a bakery and a used CD and comic book store are also underway with the aim of filling the handful of vacancies that have plagued the University for over a year.
The Ann Taylor Loft is scheduled to open by November, the first of the new additions. The women's clothing store will occupy the space at 36th and Walnut streets in the Mellon Bank Building.
"That is certain to... finally anchor University Square," Vice President of Facilities and Real Estate Services Omar Blaik said.
While the noticeable vacancy left by the Steve Madden shoe store on Walnut Street still remains unfilled after nearly six months, officials said they are pleased with the area's development.
"We have established enough critical mass that we are very happy with the area," Blaik said, noting that the area around 36th and Walnut streets is already home to successful retail offerings such as the Penn Bookstore and Urban Outfitters.
Among what Blaik termed "the most visible and exciting opportunities" is the Marathon Grill, opening in the vacancy at the Bridge complex. Although the cinema opened last fall, areas of the first floor and the entire second story have remained empty as the University sought a suitable tenant.
Marathon Grill -- a family-owned Philadelphia chain with six restaurants in Center City -- will reportedly fill all of the remaining vacancy space and the Penn franchise will open next spring after renovations are made to the facility.
Restaurant owners "are trying hard to work with the academic content that we have here to be able to bring a public venue onto 40th street," Blaik said.
Noting that other retail projects are poised "very close for release but are not signed yet," Blaik added that a bakery and a used CD and comic book store will likely debut on campus.
"Those are the local kind of flavor we are bringing to the table on 40th street," Blaik said, noting that both would be owned by residents of West Philadelphia.
Other areas are positioned for change as well. University officials noted that they have prospects for several of the other vacancies near campus, including the space formerly occupied by Friendly Express at the corner of 40th and Locust streets.
Despite the various vacancies that have dotted campus for years, University officials are pleased with the progress being made to fill them.
"The [vacancies] that are left that we don't have real term sheets or letters of intent for are down to a few thousand square feet less than probably 3 or 4 percent of our entire portfolio," Blaik said.
"This is a neighborhood that for a long time wasn't thriving," Executive Vice President spokesman Tony Sorrentino said. "And now it is going to be surpassing the national average."
