Downtown Tampa Winter Village Outdoor Solutions
For Downtown Tampa’s Winter Village, PODS storage containers provide ideal spaces and solutions for temporary retail pop-up shops.
Tampa Downtown Partnership Winter Village
The Challenge: Weather-Resistant, Secure Retail Units
After a survey of Tampa residents and workers found retail offerings Downtown falling short of expectations, Tampa Downtown Partnership decided to recreate an European-style winter market at Curtis Hixon Park as one way of addressing the problem. The park is situated in the heart of Downtown along the Hillsborough River. The problem was finding pop-up retail solutions that could withstand outdoor weather conditions for the nearly two-month duration of the market. Security was also top priority so that retailers could leave wares overnight without risk of theft.
The Solution: PODS as Functional Stores
PODS donated the seasonal use of 10 containers to Tampa Downtown Partnership to set up the now-annual Winter Village at Curtis Hixon Park. The organization clustered the PODS containers around an outdoor skating rink along the Tampa Riverwalk, hung store signs, and strung lights to create a cohesive market feel. As part of the sponsorship agreement with PODS, Winter Village retailers and Tampa Downtown Partnership can decorate containers as they see fit as long as they don't obstruct the PODS logo or the interior of the containers.
The Results: A Successful and Secure Winter Village
The PODS containers allowed the retailers to set up and customize shops easily, and lock their units securely. The partnership with PODS continues to deliver rich dividends, and the 2018 Winter Village social media pages garnered 1.2 organic million impressions the first four weeks. Given that impressions are a social media metric which measures how often pages are displayed, this suggests far-ranging brand outreach and recognition for Winter Village, and Tampa’s Downtown.
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