Cardiff’s Box City will be fun around the clock
WORK on the world’s first mixed-use Box City – constructed out of 400 shipping containers – could start this autumn in Cardiff Bay.
The innovative project would create a new 24-hour office, leisure and accommodation development close to the Gloworks building at the Porth Teigr development in Cardiff Bay.
Subject to finalising a lease deal with Igloo Regeneration – which owns the land for the proposed scheme – and securing planning consent, work on the 50,000 sq ft quayside project could start this October or November.
And the aim is for Box City, on four levels, to be completed by the spring of next year – in time for sailing’s Volvo Ocean Race.
The scheme is the brainchild of property developer and entrepreneur Simon Baston, whose other projects to date include the TramShed regeneration scheme in Grangetown, Cardiff.
While things might change through the planning process, Box City could eventually see:
36 retail units at street level, including restaurants;
Space for street-food venues, a pop-up market and bars;
Some 20 serviced business units – which could be rented by the day or for as long as 10 years – each extending to 260 sq ft and 14 smaller units of 100 sq ft;
A community gym with yoga and dance studios and a cycle repair shop;
56 hotel apartment rooms with balconies at the top level;
An outdoor stage and a huge cinema screen;
Hundreds of London Boris-style bicycles so people can cycle to and from the development; and
A dedicated 24-hour minibus service running from the centre of Cardiff to the scheme.
Mr Baston: said: “Box City will be anti-brand as we don’t big corporate tenants, like coffee and restaurants chains, but very much niche, local and independent retailers and businesses who will be offered affordable and flexible leases.
“It will be the world’s first mixedused Box City scheme, creating a vibrant 24-hour work, live and play environment.
“And we have already been inundated with inquiries from companies wanting to take space, including those from overseas, as well as a potential hotel operator.”
Mr Baston said he could make a bigger commercial return from building a conventional office development and securing tenants on long-term leases.
He added: “But that doesn’t interest me. This is all about being innovative and having fun.
“The problem with many offices in city centres is that after 5pm they are completely empty, which is wrong. Box City will be a vibrant environment around the clock.
“You need iconic buildings and schemes in cities, like the Gherkin building in London. And I have no doubt that Box City will be in the top five of the city’s attractions.”
Mr Baston said that the scheme would create up to 400 jobs when fully occupied.
The entrepreneur has already identified shipping containers from a number of suppliers across Europe for Box City. They would be refurbished and given a new lease of life of at least 30 years.
And the long-term plan is to take the concept across the UK and internationally too.
Mr Baston is also looking to work on an even larger Box City project – although it would have to go out for procurement – at the SA1 development in Swansea in a tie-up with the University of Wales Trinity St David.
As well as hundreds of units for start-up businesses, it would also provide living quarters for graduate entrepreneurs.
And it could also feature a twolane running track, four storeys up, around the perimeter of the proposed scheme extending for more than 300m.
“So this is just the start and we want to take this exciting Welsh concept to locations across the UK, as well as internationally,” said Mr Baston.
He said they would be a natural addition to port locations, such as Bristol, Plymouth, Southampton, Liverpool and Glasgow.
Sister company of DS Properties, Loftco, is behind a number of innovative regeneration projects in south Wales, including the J Shed in Swansea and the Pumphouse in Barry.