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A duplex made of shipping containers takes shape near 28th and Vine streets, just east of Cycle Works. The first of four planned duplexes should be finished by October.

This is a rendering of what the four duplexes built out of shipping containers is expected to look like.

Julie and Kris Sonderup, who own Cycle Works and Moose's Tooth, are building four duplexes from steel storage containers at 28th and Vine streets.

Kris Sonderup wanted well-traveled steel for Lincoln’s first apartments built with shipping containers — 40-foot-by-8-foot boxes that had crossed the ocean time and again, repurposed into modern living quarters.

He liked the idea of recycling the oldest containers. And wouldn’t it be cool if each came with a manifest, charting its visits around the world? How many homes in Lincoln could claim that?

But then he learned shipping containers don’t come with manifests, and that worried Sonderup: Without knowing what the containers had hauled, he couldn’t be comfortable moving renters inside.

“I was nervous about that. What kind of chemicals might have been carried?”

And then he met a man who’d built a container house in the Ozarks, who said older containers have a tendency to fight builders. Years of exposure to salt water, for example, can make it impossible to remove floorboard screws without cutting them out.

So Sonderup bought a pair of one-trippers — containers that made only one voyage across the ocean.

And now they’re planted and stacked at the corner of 28th and Vine streets, the first tangible evidence of the Containers on Vine Street apartment complex he and his wife Julie announced more than a year ago.

Eventually, they plan four double-decker duplexes, with wood and glass structures built around the shipping containers — two-bedroom apartments on the bottom, one-bedroom units on top.

But first, the builders have to figure out this new construction style. Nobody in Lincoln has done this before.

“There have been one or two little hiccups as you’re finding your way, but everyone expects it on the first one. How does this piece go? How does that one go?” Sonderup said. “Everyone’s been excited to work on it, but they’re also cautious.”

Their original plans were grander — seven buildings with 14 units. But they scaled back to better fit the land they own along 28th Street, then scaled back further after construction bids came in 25 percent higher than expected.

The couple also navigated city rules and regulations, getting a waiver from the Urban Design Committee because their architectural plans veered so far from other homes in the historic Hartley Neighborhood.

The first duplex should be finished by October, and what his subcontractors overcome on this project should make building the next three easier.

“We’re hoping that,” he said. “Because it’s definitely a learning experience on the first one.”

Reach the writer at 402-473-7254 or psalter@journalstar.com.

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Peter Salter is a general assignment reporter. The University of North Dakota graduate joined the Journal Star in 1998.

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A duplex made of shipping containers takes shape near 28th and Vine streets, just east of Cycle Works. The first of four planned duplexes should be finished by October.

This is a rendering of what the four duplexes built out of shipping containers is expected to look like.

Julie and Kris Sonderup, who own Cycle Works and Moose's Tooth, are building four duplexes from steel storage containers at 28th and Vine streets.

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