Ironworks at Pencoyd Landing welcomes new event space with Top Chef Nick Elmi

The Schuylkill has a new event venue where people can tie the knot, host corporate events, and more in Bala Cynwyd.

The Pump House, a 12,000-square-foot event space, which opened in late April at the Ironworks at Pencoyd Landing, is the latest project from chef Nick Elmi of Laurel, restaurateur and designer Fia Berisha, and Donna Galvin, cofounder of Penn Group, which owns and developed the Ironworks site.

“We feel like we’re in the middle of nowhere, even though we’re 20 minutes outside of the city. It’s very kind of serene out here,” said Elmi.

In 2021 a Marriott hotel opened at Ironworks at Pencoyd Landing, as well as two food establishments from Elmi and Berisha: The Landing Kitchen, a cafe, and Lark, a restaurant. It made sense to open a separate venue to accommodate more events because Lark has already been hosting many, said Elmi.

“We’ve done a tremendous amount of smaller events and weddings and [bar/bat] mitzvahs over the past couple of years,” he said. “A lot of times when we do that we do have to shut down Lark, which we’re really happy to do, but we also don’t want to displace our neighborhood customers.”

Construction on The Pump House began in 2022 and cost between $8 to $10 million, said Galvin. The space, which can accommodate up to 350 guests, includes 30-foot ceilings, exposed steel beams, old church doors, brass knobs, wallpapers, and a built-in sound system.

Before this recent construction work, the site of Ironworks at Pencoyd Landing still had two working factories around 2000 when Galvin saw the property for the first time.

“You walked down there — you couldn’t see the river. It was fences and weeds and poison ivy,” she said, recalling her first impressions of the property. “Not being from here, I’ve always been surprised that Philadelphia kind of has turned its back on the river. That was just one of the things [that] excited me about it, like how do we connect with the river again, and how do we get people back to at least seeing the river and experiencing it.”

The Pump House can be booked in its entirety but can also accommodate distinct events simultaneously at its different spaces. The venue includes a 4,500-square-foot main hall with room for up to 225 people seated with a dance floor, a bar for a cocktail reception of up to 125 people, and a bar belowground dubbed “The Speakeasy” that can fit up to 60 guests. There is also an outdoor covered space.

The Pump House will be “an extension of Lark,” with a food program that leans into a “coastal Mediterranean feel,” said Elmi, and which includes Italian pastas. There will be distinct pricing options available including for tasting and kids menus, and the venue is expected to employ around 35 to 40 workers by the fall.

“Being that we are connected with the hotel, one of our original ideas was to be able to be kind of an all-encompassing spot to go when you’re having kind of the largest events of your life,” he said.

Because the Ironworks at Pencoyd Landing includes a hotel, restaurant, cafe, and event venue, he said they hope to offer customers food and beverage options from “breakfast to dinner to late night.”

Asked if there are more spaces coming to the site in the future, Elmi said they’re focused right now on what they’ve already got going on.

“We’re always looking to do more and expand and have more fun,” he said. “If we have other ideas, we will certainly attack them, but right now we have a lot of things that we need to iron out over the next couple months.”