Stackt

The Stackt Market is a large retail mall built with shipping containers. Occupying two full blocks and making use of well over 100 cargo boxes, it’s Canada’s largest shipping container marketplace.

The Stackt project is filled with unique spaces and venues. Foremost, it’s a retail marketplace, with room for over 30 tenants across uses like food and beverage, clothing, and artisanal offerings. But it’s also a community hub, a performance space, and a living art installation.

For tenants, the experience is unmatched. They offer leases ranging anywhere from two days to over a year so that everything from pop-up shops to established corporations can be a part of the retail ecosystem. And they have a variety of sizes, with larger tenant spaces created by joining two or even three containers together.

But even if you don’t buy anything, Stackt still has something to offer. With tons of Instagrammable views, pedestrian-friendly pathways, and abundant courtyards to play and relax, it’s a great place to spend a few hours with your family.

It’s certainly worth discussing the numerous art installations that incorporate shipping containers. The project was constructed with containers on three levels, but only the first level is occupied by retailers. Containers on the elevated levels are empty and serve only to fill out the design as a canvas for the numerous murals.

If you’re wondering how such a large, impressive piece of property wasn’t already being used for a larger project, that’s a story in itself. In years past, the brownfield land had an industrial purpose as the site of a smelting plant and coal storage facility. Over time, the city of Toronto came to own it, with eventual plans to turn it into a park.

The developers proposed a shipping container marketplace as a temporary use of the empty lots until the city moves forward with the permanent park. In this case, containers were the perfect solution.

Their unique appearance is a perfect throwback to the industrial nature in the land’s history. And more importantly, containers offered a semi-permanent way to build a resilient collection of facilities that can still be easily moved in the future. Someday, you’re likely to find a modified version of Stackt sitting in an entirely new location!