Out of the box: a charlotte company cuts and dresses up cargo containers to provide shelter and exposure for vendors and exhibitors.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: PICTURE THIS - Company overview

More than two years after Charlotte-based Boxman Studios LLC started refurbishing shipping containers, CEO David Campbell isn't sure what to call the finished product. "A hospitality venue?" he ventures. But he knows what it takes to make them--"lots of torches, lots of welding and lots of loud noises"--and hopes whatever they're called will replace: canvas awnings, trailers, tents and other mobile means of sheltering vendors hawking trinkets, marketers showing off new products, wedding guests imbibing post-nuptial champagne and anyone else seeking temporary shelter.

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Campbell raised in Bedford, N.Y, came to the Queen City in 1995 to become a stockbroker for Interstate/Jolinson Lane Corp., which he left after then-Winston-Salem-based Wachovia Corp. acquired the brokerage in 1998. He started Acer Development LLC to sell and develop commercial real estate but abandoned it during the recession. After Acer, he saw a TV show about shipping-container architecture--stacking the 20-to 50-foot-long steel boxes, which are 8 feet wide and high, to build things, a trend that started in the early 1990s. A 20-footer, the most common, weighs more than DA tons.

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His first thought was to turn them into dorms and jails. When banks wouldn't back such an unproven, large-scale endeavor, he scaled back. One of Acer's contractors had a shipping container he was using for storage, so they sliced it up, just the two of them out in a field, using torches, saws and plasma cutters. The original concept, making movable restaurants to compete with food trucks, ran afoul of city zoning rules, so he shifted to providing temporary shelter for events. "We wanted it to be easier, cheaper and cooler than a tent. But how do you take on the tent, which has been around for 3,000 or 6,000 years or whatever?"

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Boxman tries to do that by delivering a modified shipping container where the customer wants it, then setting it up within 30 minutes. On a typical one, electric motors raise and lower hinged sides, revealing a hardwood floor and furniture. Vinyl awnings pop up. At first glance, the shelter's...