STACKT Market Secures 10-Year Lease Extension in Toronto, Unveils Venture to Empower 11,000 Canadian Small Businesses [Interview]

STACKT, North America’s largest shipping container market established in 2019, has signed a new 10+-year lease extension with the City of Toronto for its site at Bathurst and Front and the concept is also launching its new STACKTˣ which is a venture to help accelerate small businesses across Canada.

“We are thrilled to continue our relationship with the City of Toronto,” said Matt Rubinoff, Founder and President of STACKT. “In Toronto, STACKT market began as a unique concept and has evolved into an impactful ecosystem where people and businesses can connect and grow. 

“We have created a community here in Toronto, and this lease extension proves our ongoing commitment to fostering opportunities for creativity and growth. We are excited about the extension and to bring this energy across Canada this year.”

Rubinoff said the lease extension signals the commitment of continued support for Canadian businesses, innovative retail concepts and community-driven public spaces.

STACKT creates award-winning and innovative ecosystems that drive a new way of thinking. From large-scale public spaces to satellite pop-ups, STACKT designs concepts that provide inspiration, opportunity and connection. The community is made up of innovators, creators, collaborators, and consumers alike. STACKT’s award-winning Toronto flagship, STACKT market, animates 100,000 square feet with art, retail, events and public space. The dynamic space shifts alongside the brands and experiences within it. 

“(The lease extension) obviously shows the commitment and support from the City of Toronto and a big one for us as we can plan into the future now. It’s been typically shorter term leases that we’ve been doing in the past since its inception in 2019,” said Rubinoff.

“We support brands, small businesses, culture, innovation and everything through there. There’s several different components to the property. It’s the size of a city block in downtown Toronto at Front and Bathurst. 100,000 square feet. And there’s a mix of different uses throughout the site. There is a retail component to it. We work with everything from emerging businesses and small businesses in there, right through to the larger bigger brands that may come and do something innovative and test new concepts.

“We have event spaces that are on site. We have consistent programming, community programming that we’re doing through the site. And even have an industrial component with it as we’ve got a brewery on site.”

STACKT’s flagship location in Toronto has hosted over 3,000 businesses in Canada since its inception in 2019. Renowned brands such as Endy, Sonos, Makeway, Inkbox and Monos had their Canadian in-store debut at STACKT market. STACKT continues to foster the value when intersecting community and commerce, creating over 10,000 jobs, hosting over 1,800 events since inception and in turn driving over five million visitors to its Toronto flagship location.

Rubinoff said on average about 30 businesses are operating at the site.

“But part of the nature of STACKT and ever-revolving in what we do to help both small business and large business is there’s a lot of short-term leases we offer to these brands and because of that there’s quite a bit of turnover in there,” he said. 

The new  STACKTˣ  concept will provide small businesses with resources and tools, community-driven partnerships and physical retail opportunities. 

STACKTˣ will open its first expansion location in Ottawa on June 13 in the Byward Market, followed by Vancouver and Calgary locations. These prime retail locations and digital resources will support over 11,000 small businesses across Canada in the first year and continue STACKT’s legacy as the leading incubator for small businesses nationwide.

The Vancouver and Calgary locations are set to open later in the summer. Those specific locations have not been announced yet.

“STACKTˣ is a platform built for small businesses and it’s so they can get more from opportunities, resources, access, things that they need so they can succeed both online and in person,” said Rubinoff. 

“With the 3,000 businesses we’ve hosted since inception, we witness some of the challenges that a lot of these small businesses are seeing from a lack of resources, access to capital, no historical data or limited opportunities that they have. So we looked at this and we said the path needs to change and we need to change that in order to get a different outcome on this piece.

“Our goal is to take the learnings of what we have for the past five years at the flagship and launch this dedicated platform for small businesses so that they can get more out of their business journey. It too just like the flagship will be ever-evolving and ever-changing so that it aligns with these realities of what the environments are around them, everything from the market, the economy, the industry, consumer preferences. A number of different things there. All of that will obviously need to come into play but we’re going to provide this opportunity for them.”

The digital component provides resources for business owners. There will also be workshops. There is also a physical component with space for one business at a time. 

“We’ve designed a very specific modular retail unit that we’re going to be placing in really high foot traffic, premium locations in these cities to provide obviously amazing exposure and awareness and foot traffic for these brands,” explained Rubinoff. “It’s a grant program. So it’s free of charge to all these businesses that want to participate and they get access to this unit with a whole bunch of other things that we layer in from a support side . . . They get an opportunity to go out and test physical retail which has been a key piece to this.”

STACKTˣ will be giving away over 48 grants within their new pop-up locations in Ottawa, Calgary and Vancouver each offering a one-month free lease. The STACKTˣ Storefront Grant is an opportunity for small businesses to test out a retail storefront, engage with new and existing customers and learn key insights that can be applied for future growth.

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