Food court seeks community support to expand
Market 707 turns to ‘crowd-sourcing’ website to grow
It’s already proven to be the little community economic development project that could. And it hopes to get even better.
Market 707, comprised of four re-furbished shipping containers housing 12 small businesses — 11 “street food” eateries and a bike repair shop — is part- nering with a new “crowd-sourcing” website called projexity.com, a Torontobased company that bills itself as “democratizing urban change,” to raise funds to create permanent seating and a portable stage.
In operation since 2011, Market 707 — the brainchild of the adjacent Scadding Court Community Centre — has already begun to turn a formerly dreary corner of Dundas St. W. and Bathurst St. into a thriving community hub.
By June, it hopes to raise $14,500 through the “micro-donations” to launch a design competition. Those funds will also cover the cost of materials and installation.
“It (Market 707) has been a huge success. It achieves so many of our goals,” said Councillor Adam Vaughan.
“It’s employment, it’s nutrition, it’s community activation, it’s active streets,” added the Ward 19 councillor (who championed the project, often over the objections of city staff.) “But it’s also had a great impact and really animated and made that stretch of Dundas St. W. a really fun place,” Vaughan added. Nikki Toten, manager of development and community engagement for the community centre, said it helps to launch small businesses by charging rents as little as $10 to $15 a day. Most of the business owners live nearby, she added. Adding permanent seating and a stage will transform Market 707 into “an even more welcoming streetscape,” Toten said. Marisa Bernstein of projexity.com said the fund-raising campaign for Market 707 expansion is its first community development project, though it’s set to launch a project soon in Philadelphia. The fundraising campaign “relies heavily on word of mouth,” Bernstein said. “People who live, work or play near the market are basically the target . . . or people who just care about design and city development in general,” Bernstein said, noting the business model created by Market 707 can easily be established in other parts of the city and beyond. Those wishing to make donations can go to projexity.com, which of- fers a range of rewards for donations. The site is linked to paypal.comDonations will not be collected until the total fund-raising goal has been met, Bernstein noted.
Daniel Tremblay and partner Ashley Shortall run Wiggle Room at Market 707, offering sandwiches, burgers and fries with an East Coast flavour. The additions will “definitely make (Market 707) a hot spot, ” said Temblay.
Tremblay said his small eatery, like most others in Market 707, purchases its food and supplies locally from places close by like Kensington Market, making them welcome in the community.
“Right now, we’re on the ground floor of a whole new food movement,” Tremblay said.