RIDGEFIELD — As part of his Downtown Project to revitalize downtown Las Vegas, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh built a shopping center using recycled shipping containers.
Since it opened in November 2013, Las Vegas’ Container Park has brought millions of people downtown and has given retail space to more than 50 entrepreneurs. The open-air mall has 34 businesses, a playground and concert stage. The park was built using 40-plus shipping containers that are 40-feet long by 8-feet tall and 40-plus Xtreme Cubes, which are steel-framed cubes from Las Vegas-based Xtreme Manufacturing that are typically used as temporary offices on construction or emergency sites.
Now, one Ridgefield resident is wondering if the Port of Ridgefield and city should take a page from Vegas and build a container park of its own.
At the port’s meeting on March 23, Alan Malone made a presentation detailing why he thinks the port should look into building a container park, basing much of his presentation on the one in Las Vegas. Malone, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel and certified planner, visited the Las Vegas park and reached out to the port about making the presentation.
“This is something that would fit in with the city of Ridgefield,” Malone said. “It works with the unified vision of the city.”
The port and city are in the early stages of looking into waterfront redevelopment in an area near the port’s office known as Miller’s Landing, the former home of pressure-treating company Pacific Wood Treating. After the company filed for bankruptcy and vacated the space in 1993, the port took over the land and led one of the largest environmental cleanup efforts in state history.
Nelson Holmberg, vice president of innovation with the Port of Ridgefield, said the container park is just a concept — but not one that has been ruled out. Holmberg also said the park, if built, wouldn’t be at Miller’s Landing. Instead, he thinks it would work between the current downtown in Ridgefield and whatever comes to the new waterfront.
“My vision would be for the container park to work as a transition from old town/downtown to the new Miller’s Landing,” he said. “In an ideal world, that’d be the way to go. Ridgefield really wants Miller’s Landing to be a destination, and a container park could drive people to the city.”
The Las Vegas park has become a destination, with nearly 3 million visitors since it opened, including 110,000 in February, according to Doug McPhail, director of retail operations for the Las Vegas Downtown Project.
“If we just did it and made it a conventional building out of brick and mortar, we wouldn’t be talking about it right now,” McPhail said. “If we put in the same big brands you see at malls, it wouldn’t be newsworthy. This is why we’re so different, this is why we’re so unique.”
The idea for the Container Park wasn’t just to build something that looks different, McPhail said. It was to give entrepreneurs a smaller space to try out their businesses and see what it was like to run a retail space.
“The heart and soul of what the Container Park is is an incubator for new businesses,” he said. “It’s allowed many people to come in and test their ideas in the marketplace and move on, building sometimes second and even third locations.”
McPhail said others have moved from the park to bigger locations, and some business owners saw the work that goes into owning and operating a business and decided it wasn’t for them.
‘Testing ground’
The Las Vegas park is fully rented out at the moment with 34 businesses, from clothing stores to home decor to a toy store to restaurants and bars. There is also a wedding chapel, two salons and a studio that a local radio station broadcasts from regularly. There is also a wait list of about 15 people with business ideas who want in on a location at the park if one becomes available.
“This is a testing ground. We knew that some of them would work and some of them wouldn’t,” McPhail said. “We didn’t want it to be something that ruined them and ruined their lives. We wanted it to be an opportunity to explore their entrepreneurial dreams.”
That was the part of Malone’s presentation that stuck out most to Holmberg.
“A small business incubator is something we’ve had on our radar in Ridgefield for a long time,” he said. “It’s important to provide a model for small businesses, but also make sure there’s room for them to stay.”
That’s another part of the transition Holmberg sees for the container park. Not only would it physically transition from the current downtown to the waterfront, but it could allow businesses to transition from the incubator to larger locations at Miller’s Landing.
In his presentation, Malone said if the park is built, the city will need to make sure there is additional space for businesses to graduate to. He also thought the park could show off some of Ridgefield’s history. He suggested modifying a U-Haul truck into a food cart or using it as part of the park’s entrance. He also suggested part of the park could overlook the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge.
Will it work here?
The Vegas park is three stories, with rent most expensive on the first floor, McPhail said, adding he couldn’t go into detail about how much tenants pay.
He said the containers are mounted into the ground.
“In many ways, it’s a lot of the same rules that would be employed by standard construction,” he said.
The park used the same standards for windows, installation and roofing that would be used in a more standard building project. McPhail said that the local building department, contractor and architect all worked together to find common ground when designing and constructing the project, since there wasn’t code established for container buildings.
All the units have air conditioning and heating, although the turnout does depend on weather, McPhail said. Malone was there over the summer, and said once he went inside a store, it was cool and “quite comfortable.”
But will what works in Las Vegas work in Ridgefield? Port of Ridgefield CEO Brent Grening isn’t sure if the idea is right for Ridgefield, but was impressed with the presentation.
“It’s an idea, a concept to provoke a little thought. It does do that,” Grening said. “It’s an interesting product. There was a lot that I liked about the examples he showed, (like) the adaptive reuse, the flexibility, small space, the entrepreneurial aspect of that.”
Grening said the port is talking to possible developers and users to see if there is interest in building up the waterfront, to see “if there is even enough interest for a Phase 1.” If there is, Phase 1 would be looking into ideas like the container park and seeing what the city is interested in, what the residents are interested in and what could bring the most people to Ridgefield.
Grening said he was thrilled Malone reached out to the board to make the presentation and share his ideas. It’s something he’d like to see other residents do, as well.
“We want to make sure we’re building for a market. That’s the piece we’re looking at,” he said. “It’s a little early to choose the building technology. It’s not too early to know the building technology and what’s out there. The fact they’re using that building model to create attractive, destination-type pieces — places and spaces that people want to hang out — is very interesting. We want people to hang out down here, to work and enjoy as part of our waterfront.”
