BENTONVILLE — An outdoor food park concept fashioned out of shipping containers awaits Planning Commission approval.
Cypress Acquisitions and Walmart are partnering to offer a unique dining, boutique shopping and live entertainment venue, according to a narrative in city planning documents.
The Planning Commission discussed the project at its Tuesday meeting.
The area would be adjacent to the Walmart Supercenter at 406 S. Walton Blvd., according to the planning staff report. The 1.71 acres is at the southeast corner of the parking lot. A development plan providing details about the project hasn’t been submitted to the city.
Conceptual drawings included in the planning agenda packet show shipping containers in an open-air area with outdoor seating. A multistory parking area for bicycles is shown adjacent to the park.
Food would be prepared in full‐service commercial kitchens. Live music, games and other entertainment could be in the outdoor area, according to planning documents.
Cameron Aderhold with Cypress Acquisitions, based in Dallas, asked the Planning Commission for an exemption from design requirements regarding building materials. He then asked to table the request so more complete design numbers could be tallied.
Aderhold declined to comment further after the meeting, directing questions about the project to Walmart.
“We are always looking for new ways to serve and delight our customers. We think this outdoor food park concept will create a new experience in Bentonville,” said Anne Hatfield, Walmart spokeswoman.
The repurposing of shipping containers into restaurant and shopping areas is happening across the country. Cypress Acquisitions completed a shipping container park in Spanish Fort, Ala., Aderhold told the commission. That project is called The Fort. Spanish Fort is east of Mobile across Mobile Bay. The Fort had a schedule of events last week that included a night market, a movie night and live music, according to its website.
The Boxyard is in downtown Tulsa. It opened in 2016, according to its website. Developer Casey Stowe said he got the idea from Boxpark in Shoreditch, a district in east London.
The Boxyard consists of 39 containers, each providing 320 square feet of space, on 14,000 square feet of property, Stowe said. It’s a great way to create micro retail, he said.
Jim Coles, director of economic development for Tulsa, said the Boxyard offers mixed uses, which covers a lot of bases as far as choice. A bank, a restaurant, a barbershop, clothing stores and a liquor store are some of the tenants listed on the Boxyard website.
A container allows a small business to work into a space and refine itself before perhaps moving to a bigger location, Coles said.
“It’s a different experience,” he said. “People are always looking for something new and different to try.”
Aderhold showed a photo of how repurposed shipping containers were being used in Bellflower, Calif. The project was completed in June, said Jim DellaLonga, economic development director for the city. It is one of three shipping container projects developed in Southern California by Howard CDM, he said. The others are in Long Beach and Garden Grove.
SteelCraft is in downtown Bellflower on property that was vacant, DellaLonga said. Now a mix of nine food vendors are at the site, he said.
“You see a lot more foot traffic downtown,” he said. “It’s an interest generator. It’s a meeting place for a lot of people.”
There was a recent trivia night, and football games are routinely shown on big screen televisions outside, he said.
Richard Binns, Bentonville Planning Commission chairman, was in Tokyo earlier this month and visited a shipping container outlet that had food and beverage vendors.
“It was made out of shipping containers, but you wouldn’t know it,” he said.
Planning Commissioner Elaine Kerr said she liked the concept.
“It’s clearly something that is happening in a lot of different places. It’s very popular,” she said. “We are never going in the wrong direction when we have multiple places for people to gather.”