Canberra's Westside Container Village has now taken up residence at Stromlo Forest Park, but the controversial fixture is almost unrecognisable in its new home.
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The once towering pop-up has been reconfigured into ground-dwelling retail space for the growing mountain biking mecca, with hopes this iteration will be more well received than its last.
The ACT government spent more than $2.3 million on the container village from when it went up in early 2015 to the end of July 2017.
Built on a former futsal slab, and unfavourably compared to a detention centre or a driving range from a golf course, the container village did not get a smooth receptions and failed to realise its potential at West Basin.
However the government has always defended the village and its placemaking role ahead of the City to the Lake development.
"By way of comparison, this is roughly the cost of staging two weeks of Floriade," a spokesman told Fairfax Media earlier in the year.
While the government said the patronage of the site in general had not been estimated, there were over 50 major organised events that drew in over 100,000 people.
Vendors at the site paid $129,680 in rent up until January 1 this year. After that, those that were left paid no rent.
The containers were removed during August, with the removal and site cleaning expected to cost $175,000 (excluding GST).
About $570,000 worth of work was undertaken at Stromlo to install the containers.
Two of the larger, 12-metre containers will form a visitors hub while one of the six-metre containers has been fitted out as an office.
Five of the seven roof bays were also moved out to Stromlo and part of the elevation too, to be used in future mountain bike track construction.
The rest of the containers will be used by the government for other purposes, a spokesman said.
The rest of the decking was salvaged by the demolition contractor for re-use and all surplus steel, including the two unused roof frames, was taken by the steelwork contractor.
The containers will be fully installed and connected to services by the end of the year.
It's hoped they will be home to a cafe and a bicycle repair shop although it is unclear who will operate them and when they will open.
