Eyes on the Street: Canal Street life cycles … creek to development spine

Tiny, meandering Canal Street feels like a place that time forgot. But that is about to change thanks to developer Michael Samschick’s recently announced big plans for Canal Street North, off Delaware Avenue near SugarHouse.

Samschick’s has extensive holdings along several blocks of Delaware Avenue and he engaged Interface Studio to develop plans for Canal Street North, which were presented to the Planning Commission on Tuesday, as PlanPhilly’s Kellie Patrick Gates reported. Samschick intends to convert the vacant Ajax Metal Company’s factory and an adjacent ice house into a blockbuster entertainment complex featuring an 18-lane bowling alley, a Live Nation concert venue the size of the Tower Theater, a “country and western” bar (Toby Keith redux perchance?), and a distillery (reportedly for Philadelphia Distilling). And that’s only the beginning.

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