Lakeview's Fall Calendar Runs Through a 1940 Munitions Building

From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. this Sunday and the next three, the market vendors set up in the hall at 1352 Lakeshore Road East. The Lakeview Farmers' Market at the Small Arms Inspection Building has four dates left in 2026: October 4, 11, 18 and 25. After October 25 the Sunday market is gone until next year. Farther east along the waterfront, Jim Tovey Lakeview Conservation Area is getting through its first fall, and it also closes in a few weeks.

Lakeview's fall season doesn't end on one date. It winds down in steps across about ten weeks, and most of those steps happen at the same building. A 1940 munitions plant keeps the neighbourhood's calendar running from the last market Sunday to the first weekend of December. The new park covers November, the one month the building leaves weekends open.

A wartime munitions plant

The Small Arms Inspection Building was designed in 1940. According to the City of Mississauga, it was a large munitions plant for the Canadian Army through the Second World War and stayed in use until 1974. The Toronto and Region Conservation Authority managed it at first. In 2008 the City stepped in to keep it from being demolished, and it was designated under the Ontario Heritage Act in 2009.

In 2017 the City bought the building and turned it into an open-concept arts and culture venue. The City credits the Small Arms Society, a non-profit community partner that operates as CreativeHub 1352, with helping preserve the building's history and continuing to deliver community programming there. The City has also been studying how to revitalize the north end of the building's 24,000-square-foot space. Over time, that work could change how much of the hall is in use.

This matters for the fall calendar because the building has two kinds of users. The markets fill it on weekends. CreativeHub 1352 fills it on weekday afternoons and a few evenings. Each group runs on its own schedule, so the building's calendar shifts in stages through the season.

October, when everything overlaps

October is the busiest month at 1352 Lakeshore Road East because everything runs at once. The farmers' market is open every Sunday. On October 11 and 25, the biweekly Lakeview Artisan Market joins it in the same building from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., and the City says it brings in 30-plus artisan vendors. Those two Sundays get you both markets in one stop.

CreativeHub's weekday listings are scheduled around the market days:

• Tuesday, October 6, 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. Bring Your Own Craft Club, held on the first Tuesday of each month.
• Thursday, October 8, 6 to 8 p.m. Two evening sessions at the same time, forest bathing with sound immersion and an autumn-colour photography workshop.
• Tuesday, October 13, 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. A beginner-friendly workshop sculpting succulents from air-dry clay.
• Tuesday, October 27, 12:30 to 2 p.m. "The Other Side: Haunted Mississauga Revisited," a Halloween-season history talk by Heritage Mississauga historian Matthew Wilkinson. It's pay-what-you-can, with a suggested $10 donation.

The October 27 talk lands two days after the last market Sunday. It's the first event on the building's calendar after the weekend crowds are gone, and it's a ghost-story talk in a building that served as an army munitions plant from the Second World War until 1974.

November belongs to the waterfront

After October 25, the building's published calendar is quiet. CreativeHub lists its craft club again on Tuesday, November 3, and a pay-what-you-can Mahjong drop-in on Tuesday, November 17, from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. Both are weekday afternoons. The listings we reviewed show no November weekend events at 1352 Lakeshore Road East.

That's where Jim Tovey Lakeview Conservation Area fills in. The 26-hectare park opened to the public on May 30, 2026. Credit Valley Conservation says the park is open from sunrise to sunset, from late April through late November each year. CVC hasn't posted an exact closing day for 2026, so plan around "late November" for now and check the CVC park page before a late-month visit.

So this fall is the park's first, and its shortest. The weekends between the last market and the Festival of Trees fall in the same weeks as the park's final ones of the season. When the park reopens in late April, Lakeview's first autumn on the restored shoreline will be over.

Here's what's there before it closes. CVC lists 3.7 kilometres of trail with boardwalks, benches and lookouts along the lake. It promotes the trail for walking, cycling, birdwatching, dog walking and amateur photography. When the park opened, CVC said its grasslands provide important habitat for migrating birds and butterflies. The Toronto and Region Conservation Authority calls the site a wildlife-migration hotspot. The October 8 autumn-colour photography workshop at the Small Arms building works well as practice before an early-November walk with a camera.

Two practical details shape a visit.

All visitor parking for Jim Tovey Lakeview Conservation Area is located at Marie Curtis Park, 2 Forty Second Street, Toronto.

CVC says plainly that there's no visitor parking at GE Booth. If you drive, you'll cross into Toronto to park and then walk back west along the Waterfront Trail. CVC also notes the park isn't a through-trail, so you come out the way you went in. For a Lakeview resident, that makes the visit an out-and-back loop from Marie Curtis Park, not a stroll from Lakeshore Road East.

The park also gives an early look at what's coming. CVC describes its cycling trail as running beside the future site of Lakeview Village. The City's project page puts first building occupancy there in early 2029. This fall and the next couple, the trail runs past construction sites, not new neighbours.

December, when the building takes over again

Once the conservation area closes, the Small Arms Inspection Building becomes the place to go again. CreativeHub 1352's sixth annual Mississauga Festival of Trees runs from December 4 to 13. Artist-made trees are on view every day, workshops run throughout, and holiday markets and performances take place December 4 to 6 and 11 to 13. The organizer advertises more than 80 local artisan and culinary vendors. That's well over double the artisan market's 30-plus, in the same hall.

The dates fall on two Friday-to-Sunday stretches. December 4 and 11 are Fridays, with evening market hours. December 5 and 6 and December 12 and 13 have daytime hours. The Friday evenings are the only after-dark market sessions on the building's fall calendar. After a season of Sunday mornings, it's the only time this fall you'll see the old munitions hall lit up at night.

One stop on the way

Back on Lakeshore Road East, Casa Mocha at 975 Lakeshore Road East turned one on September 27, 2026. A September 2026 profile by payments company Moneris tells how owner Sarah left a career in banking to open the café with her sister. It also describes how the café went viral on TikTok for its chicken Caesar wrap, even though the café had never posted a video there. The profile says the wrap is now Casa Mocha's best seller, often sells out, and is big enough to feed two. The café also serves fresh sandwiches and Brazilian coffee. For a trail day that starts with a drive to Marie Curtis Park, a wrap that sells out is a reason to stop early.

Taken together, the season's last stretch looks like this. The final Sunday market is October 25, followed by the haunted-history talk on October 27. November weekends go to the trail until the conservation area closes in late November. The Festival of Trees opens on the evening of Friday, December 4.

If you're planning your own family's calendar around these dates, or thinking about what next year could look like in Lakeview, Brian Peterson and the Peterson Team are happy to talk it through. We follow these Lakeshore Road East dates and the Lakeview Village timeline closely, and we'll gladly share what we know. Start your family's next chapter: book a conversation with the Peterson Team.