Old cars are breathing new life into an empty Fishtown factory.
But saying vehicles will be stored there is like saying Fairmount Park has a lot of trees — technically correct but missing the point.
Passersby on Frankford Avenue, between Delaware and Girard Avenues, will see inside what was a long-derelict factory revealing a café that’s open to the public, and further inside, through the glass walls, multiple levels of unusual vehicles.
The backdrop of the new Cannonball Club will comprise a rotating crop of cars; such rare specimens as a Citroen XM or Lotus Esprit will join more well-known offerings like a 1976 Ford Gran Torino. Beyond that glass wall, members can enjoy a multilevel workspace, café, and bar. Memberships are available for car owners and car lovers alike.
It’s the brainchild of Chris Allen, 32, who runs a similar operation in Huntingdon Valley, though that’s less a daily hangout and more a car-storage facility that also hosts special events. The Fishtown club is set to open for business Sept. 10, and the public-facing café opened last week.
In Fishtown, “I wanted people to be able to walk by off the street and see the wall of crazy cars,” Allen said as he walked through the unfinished facility in late May, amid the clang of metal and screech of power tools.
Envisioning a ‘car museum’
The architecture alone can certainly draw some eyeballs. The 15,000-square-foot facility began as the Morse Elevator Works in the late 1800s. The building more recently housed antique shops, a lighting store, and a bicycle shop.
The 75 vehicles that will fill the space will be hoisted on elevators and stacked around the building, underneath the rebuilt and refinished clerestory and exposed trusses rising far overhead.
“I don’t want this to be a high-density parking garage,” Allen said. “This is more like a car museum.”
And a club. The public cafe serves coffee and pastries, and the bar serves drinks and pub food. The facility’s website says it will be open 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day.
It’s not for car enthusiasts who want the freedom of hopping in their vehicles on short notice. Members need to schedule pickup and drop-off when staff are there to operate the vehicle elevators.
Allen thinks that will work fine for collectors from the neighborhood and beyond, noting the club’s proximity to I-95.
“Any collector car owner wants to get the hell out of the city immediately once they get it,” he said.
What Fishtown neighbors think
It appeals to Tim Bryan, who’s lived in Fishtown for the past six years.
Bryan will store his 1976 Ford Gran Torino — “think Starsky & Hutch, but black,” he said — at the facility. It currently is stored miles away from him at Allen’s Huntingdon Valley unit.
Bryan attended the Fishtown Neighbors Association meeting when Cannonball was still somewhere between a plan and a dream. There, residents had a chance to voice support or concerns and vote to support or oppose the zoning variance Cannonball needed to open as an entertainment center. Neighborhood support was strong, Bryan said, and only a handful of people voiced concerns, which he saw as misplaced.
“I thought they sort of thought this was going to be Lamborghinis and Porsches and elite cars and all that kind of stuff, but my Gran Torino is not a luxury car,” Bryan said.
Bryan was also pleased to see the building put to use; it’s been empty since he moved to the area six years ago.
Fishtown Neighbors Association president John Scott said the group doesn’t usually get too involved in individual projects; they’re more about addressing more general concerns, like pedestrian safety, parking, and other issues.
But Scott said the association took the opportunity during the zoning board variance meeting to make one unusual request: using the facility as a polling place. Finding appropriate, accessible locations for voters can be difficult in a city of old buildings.
“They said absolutely, they would love to, so it sounds like they’re going to be good neighbors,” Scott said.
Even beyond Election Day, Scott sees the facility as a bonus.
“It’s different and for that alone we’re really looking forward to seeing it,” Scott said.
Scott, for example, says he loves old cars but doesn’t really want the hassle as a city dweller. Someone in his position can join for $250 a month. Members who want to store cars there pay an extra $550 a month.
‘Next level’ for car clubs
Cannonball owner Allen is a racer and a car collector himself. In early July, his team won in its class at the Historic Sportscar Racing NASCAR Classic to Le Mans Classic Circuit in France. He bought the Huntingdon Valley building just as the pandemic started as a place to store his own vehicles, plus those of family and friends, and then grew from there. He has a team of four working with him on the project and a small group of investors.
He wants to welcome an involved membership.
“I don’t want some guy to come in here and just forget about it and not actually interact with the club. In my mind, it’s a waste of one of our spots,” Allen said.
The idea for the more ambitious Fishtown venue arose from clubs like the Classic Car Club in Manhattan and the Motoring Club in Los Angeles.
Allen shopped around restaurants for food service but decided it would be easier to run the kitchen in-house. He plans to serve pub food and beer, wine, and cocktails.
A 52-foot bar on the second floor overlooks the main floor and an exposed-brick wall of cars rising in four levels. Rather than the car paraphernalia and gas pumps typical of this kind of project, Cannonball’s decor is something Allen calls colorful and “maximalist,” with Oriental rugs, plenty of seating options winding around the cars, big leather couches, and orange-velvet wingback chairs.
“I probably would have advised him not to spend as much money as he spent in renovating and building out this space,” said business consultant Robert Mau of Richmond, Va., who knows Allen from the endurance racing circuit, but isn’t involved in the new Fishtown business.
“What he’s doing in Fishtown takes [the car club scene] to the next level,” Mau said. “So now it’s like, ‘Let’s have a lifestyle or a culture of cars where people hang out — and, oh, if they store their car here, well, that’s great.’”
Other than the sibling facility in Huntingdon Valley, two clubs in the Philly suburbs offer a similar experience.
At CarVault Main Line in Berwyn, members must sponsor new applicants, and the setting is more storage building than historical loft. It advertises a self-serve bar and a place to watch the latest race.
Pottstown’s Red Horse Motoring Club touts its historic location in a 1922 Chrysler and Dodge dealership, with a members club and the option to rent the venue.
But nothing seems to exactly match what’s happening in Fishtown.
Club member and New Jersey resident Mike Kovac will park his 1989 Alfa Romeo Milano Verde at the facility. He was among the first 10 people to sign up. The Alfa is shaped like a 1980s Saab with a distinctly Italian front end, and it’s one of just 75 in the world, Kovac said.
Kovac knows not everyone is a car person, and that’s what he thinks will make the club work. He describes the challenge of gathering his car friends and non-car friends together.
“Now with Cannonball launching,” he said, “we have a place where it’s welcoming for both non-car people and car people, and you have that awesome backdrop of classic cars and exotic machinery.”
