A Banff hotel company has found a unique alternative to traditional housing for its employees.

The Canadian Rocky Mountain Resorts group tore down its decades-old staff housing at the Buffalo Mountain Lodge and is replacing it with an apartment complex made of shipping containers.

The 22 steel units will be built using up to 90 per cent recycled materials and are designed with a timber exterior, making them unrecognizable as a shipping container.

When completed, they will become home to 76 employees.

Development manager Larkin O'Connor says the shipping container option makes the most sense. (Terri Trembath/CBC)

Larkin O'Connor is the hotel group's development manager.

He says with the housing shortage in Banff, this idea was the best option.

"It's extremely exciting, it solves a lot bigger issues than what we have if you just consider the housing as an issue," he said.

"We have a challenge attracting staff to the area and staff retention, so this is a much bigger solution that just heads in beds, this is a holistic approach to how we want to run our hotels."

A Banff hotel company has found a unique alternative to traditional housing for its employees. (Terri Trembath/CBC)

Darrell Nimchuk is the president of Ladacor advanced modular systems.

"We have a trade deficit with Asia and what happens is, they ship more to us than we ship to them, and that causes an increase in our landfills with shipping containers," he said.

"So we're taking those shipping containers and giving them a higher purpose in life."

The units are slated to be move-in ready by May.