Photo: Ben Rahn / A-Frame Inc.
In 2014, architect Janna Levitt was contacted by Matt Rubinoff, a young Toronto entrepreneur with a background in real estate and marketing. Rubinoff lived near a vacant, city-owned site next to Fort York, and wanted to see something done with it?along the lines of the container markets that were then popping up in London, England. He reached out to Levitt?s firm, LGA Architectural Partners, because they had built Market 707, a set of retrofitted shipping containers for start-up retailers next to the downtown Scadding Court Community Centre.
Five years and miles of bureaucratic red tape later, the largest shipping container market in Canada?dubbed Stackt?has opened. ?It started out as a line of shipping containers along Bathurst,? recalls Levitt of Rubinoff?s initial idea. As the team explored the constraints of the two-block site, they uncovered different zoning designations, which began to suggest ways the whole 2.4-acre-area could become inhabited with a range of activities. LGA approached the project as an urban planning exercise, designating a main street that stretched from the primary Bathurst Street entrance to the secondary Tecumseth Street entrance, with side streets and laneways branching off from it. A food and beverage area flanks a big lawn, and south-facing courtyards look out towards the active rail corridor, providing sunny areas for lounging in the summer and trainspotting in the shoulder seasons. A microbrewery at the rear o...