Financing has been set in Philadelphia for the long-planned 300-seat Wilma Theatre at Broad and Spruce Streets, part of a $313 million project known as Avenue of the Arts.
City officials had worried that the planned cultural corridor on South Broad Street seemed to be losing momentum, as all of the three “anchor” projects-a new concert hall, a renovated Academy of Music and a planned performing-arts center-ran into by fund-raising difficulties and controversy.
The key in getting the combined $19.9 million deal for the Wilma Theatre on track was a $2.5 million loan by the city’s development agency, borrowed against future federal housing and development subsidies.
The Philadelphia Orchestra, which hopes to finance a new concert hall and the $27 million renovation of the Academy of Music, was stung by the collapse of the Foundation for New Era Philanthropy, on which it was counting for $8 million.
