A long-planned food hall will open this fall at Schuylkill Yards in University City
Gather Food Hall & Bar is due to open this fall with six still-to-be-named vendors and an upscale bar at the Bulletin Building across from 30th Street Station.
Brandywine Realty Trust, developer of Schuylkill Yards, is moving forward with a long-planned food hall on the ground floor of the Bulletin Building at 30th and Market Streets, across from 30th Street Station and on the doorstep of University City.
Gather Food Hall & Bar is due to open this fall with six still-to-be-named vendors and what is described as an upscale bar. The building, which formerly housed what was for many years America’s largest evening newspaper, is at the core of Brandywine’s ongoing $3.5 billion Schuylkill Yards development, featuring luxury housing, public space, and offices and labs for the city’s cell-and gene-therapy market.
“A key part of the neighborhood is getting the right level of retail curation,” said Jerry Sweeney, Brandywine’s chief executive, in an interview. “Where the food hall is going is right at the most heavily [trafficked] pedestrian intersection in University City. People come out of the train station. They’ll walk through our park there and the food hall will be right at that southeast corner with a range of different vendor options.”
Amtrak is developing new food options as part of a massive renovation of the train station due to be completed this year. Sweeney, thinking holistically about the area down to the riverbank, said he viewed Amtrak’s plans as complementary.
Gather will be overseen by the New York-based Hospitality HQ, a national food-hall operator, and a Philadelphia group called Gather Food Hall Management, whose team includes Jeff Benjamin, chief executive of Federal Donuts & Chicken and chief operating officer of Vetri Restaurant Corp. The group also includes JEME Agency, a creative team, and Believe In Students, a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring aspiring college students have their basic needs met. Gather’s social mission has been supported by seed funding from Cerity Partners.
A Brandywine statement said Bell Butler Design & Architecture’s design for Gather Food Hall will respect the building, which housed the Bulletin from 1955 until its closing in 1982. The design will integrate graphics, historical elements, and lighting features that celebrate the building’s history.
Gather was founded in fall 2020 as an open-air food hall in North Philadelphia with a mission of empowering local food entrepreneurs, providing affordable food options for the community, and cultivating wellness-focused events.
“From [Brandywine’s] perspective, we’ve got the great local connection and the great seasoned operator,” Sweeney said. “Certainly from our standpoint, it’s very important to have that community connection piece as well, because that’s all part of the neighborhood that we’re creating.”