Touted as the first-of-its-kind shipping container business park, the Box Office Warehouse Suites (or BOWS, for short) in Fort Worth, Texas, is a commercial lease space constructed of 154 brightly-painted shipping containers with glazed storefronts and outdoor patios. Suites range from 320 to 2,240 square feet in size and house an artsy crowd of creative entrepreneurs — think retail, offices, salons, and artist studios. They’re designed for smaller spaces and lower rent, so local businesses can have a warehouse with an office.
It’s one of the fastest growing areas in the county, and many businesses go there for a dedicated workspace or a place to have meetings while they continue working from home.
Temperatures in Fort Worth can get extremely high in the summer and relatively low during the winter, so HVAC plays an essential role in business owners’ and customers’ comfort.
In designing the business park, Ron Sturgeon, developer and president of RDS Investment & Ron Sturgeon Real Estate LP, knew it needed an HVAC solution that provided custom control for each suite to address individual comfort needs and hotspots.
Plus, it was important that the space be as energy efficient as possible, both to reduce utility bills and have a positive effect on the environment. Tenants at BOWS tend to skew younger and are passionate about green initiatives, making energy efficiency top-of-mind for many.
The project team specified individual duct-free mini-split HVAC units in each tenant space, along with a compatible outdoor heat pump.
A large number of the HVAC units used at the Box Office Warehouse Suites were the LG Art Cool Gallery units — a picture frame air conditioner, designed to mount on a wall, allowing end-users to personalize their indoor unit with an image of their choosing.
It’s a clever concept for the tenants that occupy those spaces, as they can remove the LG-provided art in the front and display their own art or pricing menu. Plus, its self-cleaning coils allow for easy maintenance, which is ideal for the small business owners at BOWS.
Sturgeon specified LG’s Art Cool Gallery and Art Cool Mirror Indoor Units, Multi F Outdoor Units, and High Efficiency Single Zone Inverter Outdoor Units for the Box Office Warehouse Suites.
The LG duct-free Art Cool Mirror units used on BOWS range from 9,000 to 12,000 Btu/h capacities. They feature energy-efficient inverter technology, and the duct-free application allows tenants to heat and cool individual spaces to their preferred comfort levels with natural airflow and auto operation modes.
Sturgeon said that, in addition to the efficiency and temperature control, the individual a/c units have become a selling point for the Box Office Warehouse Suites. Tenants have to pay their own electric bills, and as small entrepreneurs, they are sensitive to this major expense and the overall energy efficiency of their spaces. The LG units provide control over temperature, the electric bill, custom comfort, and a sleek piece of artwork that can be customized itself as well.
