The cargo container outside Eagle’s Dare is painted white, with red decals matching the building’s aesthetics. Owner Joe Apkarian said it felt like a great way to use a modern architectural material to meet his needs.
"Our shipping container is utilized as a secondary bar for our bigger events. It also has room for stuff, you know, call it storage," he told WHQR.
But in 2025, he said he got a notice of violation: “That the shipping container that we've had on site for three years is not in accordance with their zoning code, their land development code, and from there, started the process of, you know, requesting a variance to the code.”
But that strategy didn't quite work — the Board of Adjustment is meant to address variances where, due to the shape of a plot of land or some other issue, the landowner has no choice but to ask for an exception to code requirements. In Apkarian’s case, that’s not necessarily true; he chose to put the shipping container there, after all.
But he thinks the violations don’t quite make sense — especially on his particular property.
According to the city, the cargo container is an outbuilding, and as such, needs to meet all the requirements of any newly constructed building. That means height minimums, placing it 5 feet from the sidewalk, and making sure the wall facing the sidewalk has at least 50% of its width covered by windows. And metal is a forbidden exterior material, according to the code. The existing building on his property, a refurbished 1950s gas station, doesn't meet that requirement to be close to the sidewalk, either.
"Everything is made to adhere to new building construction," Apkarian said. "So a shipping container is the same as a building, and is meant to adhere to those code requirements. And in some cases, when dealing with a shipping container simply does not make sense. And so I was briefing [the BOA], hey, this is we're fitting a square peg through a round hole here, ya’ll."
None of the requirements would work for Apkarian: it would block his parking lot, force him to cut down a tree, and the required windows would only offer a view of stored toilet paper.
For other shipping container projects in the Central Business District, meeting those code requirements took creative solutions. Consider Chow Town, the new food truck pavilion in the Brooklyn Arts District. Architect Rob Romero said they had to create a “frame” to meet the city’s height requirements.
"I think they wanted 35 [feet of height], but when, you know, the container is nine feet, sometimes they're stacked, so they're 18 or something, so you're still way under it," he told WHQR. "So we built this frame that kind of becomes a building, in a way, almost like a line of a building. And it’s interesting, but it’s odd, right?”
It is odd. Romero put some pilings around the lot that rise high into the air, creating the “frame.”
And since they’re made of wood, that now counts as the “exterior building material,” according to Assistant Planning Director Brian Chambers.
"It was creating a frame around the containers, and that frame was used to satisfy the standards. It was a creative solution, so we try to be as creative as we can," Chambers said.
But it’s a solution to a particular problem — the city code doesn’t acknowledge the trend of using cargo containers as a construction material. Staff have gotten creative to help local business owners and architects enact their vision, but they’re still trying to work around code requirements that don’t make much sense applied to cargo containers, according to Apkarian. That's why he requested changes to the code that would make his project viable: by allowing waivers for height, siding material, and window requirements when a cargo container is the material in question.
"We're not setting the stage for the Wild West," Apkarian said. "That's not what we're here for. I understand that. But at the same time, we need to address some form of - in our code, addressing this type of new style of architecture that's being utilized around the world, to the fact that we already have a district named Cargo District.”
Notably, the Cargo District also had to put alternative siding on several of its metal boxes before city staff started waiving that requirement.
Apkarian's code amendments now need to go through the city’s process. The staff will look it over, have some meetings with Apkarian, and then present the code amendment proposal to the planning board in April. From there, the planning board can recommend it, or not, and then it goes to council.
