"That's what I can't wait to tell people about: It's going to be air-conditioned," says Agnew, 33, smiling through his beard one day last week at Noche, the Center City bar owned by Avram Hornik, the third partner in Union Transfer. "I'm so excited."
Agnew was discussing the details of Union Transfer along with Jim Glancy of Bowery Presents and Hornik, the nightlife majordomo whose Four Corners Management is helping to turn the former Spaghetti Warehouse site on the northern edge of Center City into a 600-capacity rock club.
The new venue, at 1026 Spring Garden St., will also mark a significant upgrade from the church, which has been a crucial proving ground for acts from Grammy-winners Arcade Fire to controversial rappers Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All, despite its dim lighting and less than state-of-the-art production values.
The new club, the first in which Agnew is a part-owner, is a dramatic space whose outer wall still displays the Union Transfer name, a legacy of the days when it served as a railroad shipping depot. And when it opens for business - with a lineup that will include riot-grrl supergroup Wild Flag, Americana songwriter Gillian Welch, and Philadelphia mixmaster RJD2, with tickets to those and other shows going on sale on Ticketfly on Saturday - Agnew and partners promise a very different experience.
"It's a quote-unquote real venue," says Agnew. It will cater to under- and over-21s, and include 200 on-site parking spaces and room for 150 bikes. And the d&b audiotechnik sound system "is an incredible high-end, fancy-pants system."
Agnew's collaboration with Four Corners' Hornik (who co-owns six bars around town, including Ortlieb's Jazzhaus, in Northern Liberties) and Bowery Presents, whose 575-capacity Bowery Ballroom in New York was just named the most influential club in North America by Billboard, has been in the works for a few years.
