There is a strip of vacant stores along Eglinton Ave. W. in Toronto.

The street in front of the stores is under construction.

The stores are vacant (there is no one using them) partly because of the construction, which makes it hard for people to visit the stores to shop. And if there are no shoppers, there’s no point in opening a store.

But Toronto businessman John Kernaghan looked at the vacant storefronts and saw possibilities.