Changing the face of campus: Nearly $1.5 billion has been committed to various construction projects underway or recently comple

Wootton High School '98

Rockville, Md.

Early next school year, Philadelphia will have new entertainment and dining destinations, some of which will be located right here on Penn's campus.

Hamilton Square, on the western end of campus at 40th and Walnut streets, will house the long-awaited Sundance Cinemas complex and Freshgrocer.com, a state-of-the-art specialty foods supermarket topped by an 800-car parking garage.

After two delays, the $33.8 million eight-screen independent Sundance film complex is slated for a fall opening, while Freshgrocer.com is scheduled to open its doors in August.

The Sundance complex -- which will include a restaurant, a tapas bar, an outdoor cafe, an espresso bar, gardens, a town hall component, a lecture hall and a reflecting pool -- is a joint venture between Robert Redford's Sundance Cinemas and Boston-based General Cinemas.

Standing across the street on the northwest corner of 40th and Walnut will be a 31,000 square-foot supermarket, featuring freshly prepared foods, a deli, coffee bar, juice bar and sushi bar.

The Sundance Cinemas complex and Freshgrocer.com market are intended to serve as catalysts for further development along 40th Street's Hamilton Village, which has traditionally been a psychological barrier for students, who rarely venture much further west.

The 40th Street corridor runs from Baltimore Avenue in the south to Filbert Street, just north of Market Street. Penn had been hoping to revive the western end of campus for years before University administrators were approached by movie mogul Redford to open up the first of his chain of independent movie theaters.

Sundance construction began last summer with the demolition of parts of the Hamilton Village complex. This winter, budget problems and the high demand for steel across the city set back Sundance construction by at least three months, according to Executive Vice President John Fry.

Penn and officials from the University City District -- a non-profit organization funded by several University City institutions designed to promote the area and provide services like maintenance and security -- hope that over the next three years the corridor will become a lively commercial zone.

"I think that within a year after Sundance and the market opening, you will see existing, unutilized storefronts becoming active again," Tom Lussenhop, the University's top real estate official, said in December.

Since Sundance construction started, the University has brought two new dining establishments to Hamilton Village.

Izzy and Zoe's bagel shop and delicatessen opened to hordes of students in late February. Bitar's Restaurant, serving Middle Eastern cuisine, debuted next door in April.

"We're starting to create a nice mix of owner-operated venues," John Greenwood, a top official for the University's real estate company, said in April.

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