Shipping container apartments trend hits West Nashville

There are an estimated 20 million surplus shipping containers lying unused around the world. Before long, about a dozen of them will be turned into micro apartments in the Nations neighborhood in Nashville.

It will be the first multi-family development in the region made up of the heavy steel containers, which are used to move everything from laundry detergent to electronics by ship and train around the world, said developer Michael Kenner.

"We lock them together. Whatever you can do with Legos, you can do with these," said Kenner, founder of MiKeN Development. Scott Haley and Jack Rainey, co-owners of HR Properties, are partnering with Kenner on the project.

Each 40-foot-long container will be turned into a 320-square-foot apartment. Kenner's supplier, New York City-based SG Blocks, will slice doorways and windows into the steel walls. Once the interiors are completed with drywall, insulation and flooring, the apartments will be indistinguishable from ordinary construction, he said.

SG Blocks recently installed 21 shipping containers at Nashville's oneC1TY development, where they will create space for retail stores, restaurants and events. OneC1TY, located on Charlotte Pike west of downtown, is a mixed use development with a focus on health care and technology.

Possibly the first re-use of a shipping container in Nashville is the 404 Kitchen, a restaurant on 12th Avenue South in Nashville's Gulch district.

SG Blocks President Steve Armstrong, whose home is in Brentwood, said repurposed shipping containers "are the ultimate recycling project. It appeals to folks who are concerned about the impact they have."

Building with the containers is safe, durable and sustainable. Construction is about 40 percent faster and 20 percent cheaper than traditional construction, the company's website says.

SG Blocks delivers hundreds of redesigned containers every year. Projects include a million-dollar beach house in the Hamptons on the East Coast, housing at the Fort Bragg Army base and commercial projects across the country.

Like Kenner, Armstrong compared the containers to a child's Lego set of toy building blocks.

"This is no different. Of course, the blocks are bigger," said Armstrong.

"It appeals to folks who want an industrial look, or it can look like a typical home and nobody would ever know unless you told them," he said.

Millennial appeal

Kenner, an advocate of affordable housing, plans to offer his micro apartments as "workforce housing" with rents in the $700 range. The development is planned for the corner of 60th Avenue North and Morrow Road.

Kenner is building a 60-home cottage development next door at 1206 60th Ave. N. That development, Treaty Oaks Cottages, is being built with traditional wood-frame construction. It will be the region's first affordable, wellness-oriented development, he said.

For example, the homes will feature circadian rhythm lighting that subtly changes color — bluer in the morning and more yellow in the evening — to mimic the sun and help residents be active in the morning and slow down at night, said Kenner.

The surrounding neighborhood, located on the edge of an industrial area, is rapidly redeveloping. The neighborhood, and the concept of repurposing shipping containers as residences, are particularly appealing to young people who want to live in the heart of the city, said David Grisham, the Smith Gee Studio architect who is designing the container apartments.

"This is for all the millennials flooding into Nashville. We're catering to this new generation," he said.

Many of them prefer to rent an apartment instead of owning a house, and they are comfortable using other elements of the "sharing economy" such as Uber, Lyft and Airbnb, said Grisham.

"Everything's shared. You don't own anything," he said.

Reach Bill Lewis at 615-262-5862 or wlewis77229@comcast.net.