In the holiday chaos of Canal Street, a beautiful reprieve has emerged. The street’s now home to the Canal Street Market right in a gorgeous 12,000-square-foot industrial space that you may never have noticed before. In dark gray, the building looks ready to welcome New Yorkers and tourists looking for something special with a full retail market and the soon-to-open full food extravaganza.
“Canal Street Market is such a stark contrast from what sits on this stretch of Canal Street. There’s never a perfect time to launch a concept like this and that’s why it’s always been so scary and exciting at the same time,” says the market’s founder and developer Philip Chong. “We’re very excited to launch with partners … as well as a group of newcomers that serve the needs and desires of the community.”
For the longest time 265 Canal Street, where Canal Street Market is housed, sat completely empty. Luckily for the city, it’s now filled with a mix of local Chinatown businesses and exciting tech, media and fashion companies. “Unfortunately, there’s been less change on the retail landscape of Canal Street and that served as our impetus for change. We were tired of staring at empty storefronts and having little to no options to shop and eat!” adds Chong.
But the neighborhood’s essence, of course, still plays a vital role in all things happening at the market. For the market’s creative director, Dasha Faires, it was all about finding inspiration in the surrounding neighborhood. “The juxtaposition of the sights and sounds of Chinatown and the eccentric creatives that live and work there helped inspire something new and different for the neighborhood,” she says.
And so the mix of product includes gorgeous homewares, fashion items and design items. The items to stock up on include all things Italian (including olive oils and colorful linens) from the famed il Buco’s home line il Buco vita, chocolates with all flavors the imagination can come up with from Mast Brothers and Office Magazine’s very own coffee shop. Make sure to take home some of the Southern-style Jack Rudy cocktail mixes while you’re there, too.
“There is a mixture of finely packaged food products worked into the assortment on the retail side of the market; this helped us achieve our ‘convenience’ element we wanted to provide for the neighborhood, but it’s strategically disguised within an aesthetic that feels high-end but still shoppable,” says Faires.
And in the next few months, the official food side of the market will also be opening to the public with plenty of finessed offerings. “From the beginning, this project has been centered around building a community and rethinking the environment to which that community is drawn,” Faires adds. “Launching in early 2017, the food side will provide a distinctive assortment of food options for locals and tourists to explore.” Stay tuned for more on what’s cooking next door, it is worth the short wait.
Photos courtesy of Canal Street Market.
