{"id":5027,"date":"2013-12-17T22:56:10","date_gmt":"2013-12-18T05:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/vitalvegas\/?p=5027"},"modified":"2013-12-17T23:19:14","modified_gmt":"2013-12-18T06:19:14","slug":"cant-contain-love-new-downtown-container-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/vitalvegas\/cant-contain-love-new-downtown-container-park\/","title":{"rendered":"We Can’t Contain Our Love for the Downtown Container Park"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Downtown Container Park has officially opened.<\/p>\n

For several months now, as we heard all about this new Las Vegas offering, we sort of didn’t get it. Now, we’ve visited and we not only get it, we love it.<\/p>\n

For many Las Vegas visitors, two questions spring to mind when it comes to the Downtown Container Park. One: What the hell is it? Two: Is it worth a visit?<\/p>\n

\"Downtown<\/a>
No, there’s no gambling, but the hooch almost makes up for it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

First, what’s the Downtown Container Park?<\/p>\n

The Downtown Container Park, for one thing, doesn’t have a great name. It’s accurate, though, because the Container Park is a shopping center made up largely of re-purposed shipping containers (also known as “intermodal containers”). You know, the kind they fill with sneakers and blow-up dolls (just testing to see if you’re paying attention) and load onto trains and ships.<\/p>\n

\"Shipping<\/a>
Useless trivia: It’s estimated there are 17 million intermodal containers in the world. Yes, we counted.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The shipping container aspect is sort of a distraction from the central question, “What is it?” Well, the Downtown Container Park is a shopping mall. Not too complicated, right?<\/p>\n

And yet, to keep things interesting, it’s not merely a mall.<\/p>\n

\"Downtown<\/a>
It’s a little like Tetris, but with boutiques.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As for the other question, whether it’s worth a visit, we can assure you it is, and we aren’t even a mall person. Here are some reasons why.<\/p>\n

The downtown Container Park has 34 outlets, and the folks behind it (the Downtown Project, led by gazillionaire Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh) have been very clever about the shopping center’s tenants.<\/p>\n

The shops and bars and restaurants are quirky and diverse, but the thing they all seem to have in common is that they truly understand what the Container Park is all about. It’s a community, for the community.<\/p>\n

\"Downtown<\/a>
You’ll want to climb it. We did, and we don’t care who knows it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Every person working in every store we visited seemed to be exceptionally friendly and helpful. It’s the kind of treatment you get at small businesses, and the Downtown Container Park, based upon store size alone, requires these businesses be small. (Most of the containers are in the neighborhood of eight feet wide by 20 feet long. There are also about 30 modular “cubes,” just 250-square-feet.)<\/p>\n

Honestly, the shops at the Container Park are downright adorable.<\/p>\n

Here’s a video of the Container Park that might set the stage for what it’s like to visit. The photos we’ve seen didn’t really give us a sense of what the place is like, or how it’s laid out. Hopefully, the video will help a little.<\/p>\n

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