TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) - You could have a new place to spend a night on the town—-in a shipping container. There’s a plan to use shipping containers to build a new venue downtown—-if they can work out a way to hook up the utilities.
When you think about a place for a pleasant night out you probably don’t think about spending time in a steel shipping container. But these versatile items are turning into bars, restaurants and all sorts of things and now there’s another one in the works.
Shipping containers stack up as a great way to create attractive places to live, work and hang out.
As she left the container complex at the MSA Annex Jordan Menesee-Rivera said: “Oh it’s lovely. It’s a great way to reduce, reuse and recycle.”
Craig Smith, KGUN9: “You wouldn’t normally think of a steel box as an inviting place.”
Jordan Menesee-Rivera: “You wouldn’t, but somehow we’ve made it charming.”
The Boxyard on 4th Avenue has worked out so well that its developers want to use more containers for a restaurant, bar and office complex at Broadway and 6th Avenue.
That’s in the heart of downtown but it’s one of the rare locations that does not have electricity, water and sewer ready to hook up.
The containers are basically pre-fab, so adding those lines in a busy downtown could be the toughest part of the job.
Developper Kyle Knudsen says, "For the most part, we try to utilize those avenues of running the project concurrently, utility infrastructure pad prep while the buildings are being constructed and erected off site."
Because Rio Nuevo wants to help downtown be an active, vibrant place, developers are asking the Rio Nuevo board to help cover the cost of installing utilities at the site. Developers say the cost could run about 300 thousand dollars. The Rio Nuevo board is interested in helping but told developers to bring back a more precise estimate for the board to consider.
----
STAY IN TOUCH WITH US ANYTIME, ANYWHERE
- Download our free app for Roku, FireTV, AppleTV, Alexa, and mobile devices.
- Sign up for daily newsletters emailed to you
- Like us on Facebook
- Follow us on Instagram
- Follow us on Twitter
