Shipping containers take on new life in 'The Yard' at AT&T Park

Using shipping containers as a retail, restaurant or residential building material isn't an entirely new concept, but these metal boxes are being used in a high-profile way with Friday's opening of The Yard, a retail and beer garden space in San Francisco, across from AT&T Park.

The shipping containers, installed in Lot A with views of the ballpark, house all of the businesses that comprise The Yard. Within the space is an Anchor Steam beer garden, bleachers to eat food from Off the Grid food trucks and retail spaces for North Face and Made in SF, among others.

Workers put the final touches on The Yard sign in San Francisco. (Chris Riley Vallejo Times-Herald)

Local business Transport Products Unlimited had a hand in the project, supplying half of the containers being used in this unique place. Along with container company American Transportation Services out of Oakland, the two companies reworked 13 shipping containers for use in The Yard, modifying the shells before taking the products to Urban Bloc in San Leandro, where the final interiors were installed.

Marth Trela, CEO of Urban Bloc, said that the use of shipping containers is finally gaining some traction.

"Commercial container construction has been popular in Europe and Asia for awhile now, but it's just starting here in the United States," Trela said. "The United States is really just starting to embrace it, but it's seemingly taking off really well. People just have this natural inclination to these kind of social food/shopping experiences and so we're excited because there seems to be tremendous interest in using empty lots and vacant areas ... and it's not as difficult as traditional buildings to set something up."

Transport Products Unlimited president Randy Larsen has been working on container projects for decades, first seeing modified use of shipping containers back in the '80s. The Yard is one of the largest commercial spaces Larsen has worked on, but for him, the appeal of using shipping containers is apparent.

"It's more cost-effective because your construction is going to last longer than if you built it out of wood," Larsen said. "Getting into some of the areas we can deliver, you'd have a hard time hauling the lumber and stepping in there ... It's a turnkey (project): When (the container) leaves here, we set it on the ground and basically all they have to do is hook power up to it and water ... and they're good to go."

Beyond the durability of using shipping containers as a building material, it is also a way to reuse materials that oftentimes sits around collecting dust, according to Jerry Jameson, CIO of Urban Bloc.

"In the places where the shipping containers originate, there's mountains and mountains and mountains of them that are just sitting idle," Jameson said. "And so it's really an opportunity to just reuse them. And so instead of having to start from scratch and build things and use new products, basically what we've done is taken almost thrown away objects and turn them into productive things again."

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Shipping containers take on new life in 'The Yard' at AT&T Park