OpBox creates unique venues for retail and community services

Courtesy / OpBox OpBox co-founders Emily Davis and Ben Davis, shown with an OpBox used by L.L.Bean, raised $500,000 for expansion.

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By Jessica Hall

Ben Davis, co-founder of OpBox, sees his Nobleboro-based startup that designs and builds modular, eco-friendly “pop up” spaces as key to helping the retail and hospitality industries and community infrastructure sector find flexible, affordable mobile spaces.

“This is the modern shopping mall. It’s not this big footprint that’s stationary. This is a flexible solution that goes to the consumer and can change and evolve as consumer needs change,” Davis said. “It’s flexible. It’s outdoors. It’s more affordable.”

Rather than renting pricey brick-and-mortar retail space in Portland’s Old Port, retailers such as Rugged Seas have used OpBox as a temporary retail location downtown. L.L.Bean also used OpBox as part of its outdoor skating venue this winter. OpBox venues lease for about $1,000 a month, or sell in mid-$20,000 range, Davis said.

An OpBox village will come to Boston in early summer that will feature eight OpBoxes that will host various retailers and vendors. Plans are pending for OpBox to pop up in Chicago, Atlanta and potentially Charleston, S.C., Davis said.

OpBox, which has built dozens of its recycled spaces, sees a variety of uses for them. In addition to retail stores, the hospitality industry is looking at OpBox as a way to do a mobile tap room, for example.

“We see this as a blank canvas that people can use for their own unique purposes,” said Davis, who (with sister Emily) was named to the 2018 Mainebiz Next List.

Davis is also excited about the community infrastructure opportunities for OpBox. In a project with the Maine People's Housing Coalition and the city of Portland, OpBox this summer will launch mobile shower units for the homeless in Portland.

“It’s a really fantastic and scalable solution that could be used in other cities, as well,” said Davis.

In San Francisco, for example, there is a mobile shower service that uses city buses, but that was far more costly to outfit and unaffordable to replicate. Instead, OpBox spent a year in the design process to get its mobile shower units ready for use in Portland, Davis said.

OpBox has raised $500,000 in a seed round of funding that included a community development block grant and private capital, Davis said. The money was used to bring its production efforts in house in its location in Nobleboro, hire workers and buy equipment. It aims to expand its production efforts this year, but the location has not been chosen.

OpBox grew out of a previous business, Portland Container Co., which used recycled shipping containers but lacked windows, were heavy to move, and also rusted over time.

During a trip to Canada, Davis stumbled upon a unique building material using 100% Recycled PET plastic from JD Composites of Nova Scotia.

JD Composites became a joint venture partner with Acadian Composite Materials, a sister company of OpBox, to produce long lasting, structurally insulated panels made from recycled plastic coming from the ocean and landfills. Acadian Composite Materials makes the panels that OpBox uses to build its finished, portable venues.

Davis said OpBox also has been selected for season seven Greenlight Maine, a statewide collaboration of entrepreneurs and corporate leaders designed to promote and mentor the development and growth of business.