Roundup: Container Commercial Streets & Container Markets That Opened in 2023 (1)

1. Ejin Container Night Market

The Juyan Container Night Market in Ejin Banner is a viral street that blends food, drink, play, shopping, entertainment, intangible cultural heritage, and music. Built in Alxa League as a container-themed night market, it creates heritage exhibition and sales points plus music performance zones, hosting viral musicians, folk artists, and heritage shows to meet visitor demand, enrich trendy play elements, light up a new "night" economy for Ejin tourism, and bring a distinctive everyday bustle. The night market currently has 42 stalls. With creative trendy elements, Juyan Container Night Market sits in Juyan Cultural Town, Ejin Banner. Since opening on August 27, 2023, its popular container theme and music performances have drawn crowds and quickly become a must-visit check-in spot. Local favorites and viral snacks—grilled squid, red willow skewers, trendy milk tea, camping hot pot, and more—offer residents and visitors a full eat-drink-play-shop experience. Ejin Banner uses creative design to power the night economy, building the league's first themed viral street with a Chinese-style, multi-dimensional, immersive mix of viewing, shopping, touring, and interactive experiences—adding cultural flavor to everyday life, upgrading the night-market food IP into a cultural-tourism IP, and elevating Ejin's night economy.

2. Nanchang High-Tech Zone STAR Youth Market

After the FUN Youth Market supporting commercial project near the Nanchang High-Tech Zone Smart Manufacturing Industrial Park opened, on November 19, 2023 the STAR Youth Market—a distinctive commercial street supporting the industrial park—officially began operations. The project covers about 10.8 mu (roughly 1.78 acres), with zones for specialty dining, leisure and entertainment, daily amenities, and an open-air stage. It is built mainly from steel-structure sky bridges and movable shipping containers. Unit sizes range from 36 to 340 square meters and can host nearly 100 fixed merchants at once. Compared with open-air night markets, STAR Youth Market offers more indoor dining space, plus a canopied public dining area and a viewing terrace—whether a few colleagues or a gathering of twenty-plus, there is a fitting scene.

The Youth Market series, with rich formats and a cool positioning, shapes a new commercial paradigm for a "trendiest high-tech" 15-minute park life circle, giving industrial residents something to look forward to beyond work. Starry-sky art installations, colorful "box" shops, and a roaring main stage… Walking into STAR Youth Market south of Yaohu West Avenue and west of Yaohu West 7th Road, futuristic photo spots attract trendsetters—including local Nanchang influencer Duoduowei—to livestream and check in.

Built on land around the industrial zone, STAR Youth Market can effectively serve more than 6,944 park employees and residents, and especially considers the lifestyles and dining habits of nearly 10,000 ethnic-minority employees in nearby parks. The market unlocks "daytime coffee, nighttime drinks, trendy food" scenes with "trend economy" potential, and builds a 15-minute life circle with 24-hour convenience stores, coffee social spaces, pharmacies, hair and nail salons, board games, digital goods, self-service photo booths, parcel lockers, and more—so industrial residents feel fast, convenient services and a warm park life.

3. Kunming New Asia Sports City Box Park BOX PARK

New Asia Sports City takes another step forward—BOX PARK, Asia's largest box park developed by Xingyao Group, brings over 600 shipping containers into Kunming's commercial wave. Unlike a traditional mall, New Asia Sports City is all-encompassing: sports venues, hotel clusters, dining clusters, nightlife clusters, amenity clusters, and night-market street clusters. Kunming residents and visitors from across the country can find their own consumption choices and lifestyles. It aims to become a weekend leisure destination for locals and a national tourism hub.

BOX PARK's biggest highlight is more than 600 containers across four commercial blocks: A (Cool Street Box Park), B (Food Street Box Park), C (Pet Box Park), and D (Seafood BBQ Box Park)—creating the new commercial IP "BOX PARK," positioned as "China's coolest, most fashionable container park." Zone A Cool Street Box Park sits on New Asia Sports City's main plaza with 225 containers, planned for retail, daily amenities, Southeast Asian and Korean specialty goods, themed dining, coffee, and Yunnan ethnic products—ideal for heritage culture, folk customs, and trendy creative experiences.

Zone B Food Street Box Park sits next to the sports city's bar street. Its formats closely match bar patrons—BBQ, skewers, drinks, snacks, and regional specialties—further enriching the bar street. Stalls are fully leased and merchants are renovating; it was expected to open in early August and become New Asia Sports City's "late-night canteen."

Zone C at the main entrance (Caiyun North Road) is Pet Box Park, assembled from 234 containers. It offers one-stop pet retail and lifestyle services for cats, dogs, exotic pets, flowers, birds, fish, small animals, plants, antiques, root carvings, and light themed dining—covering pet food, veterinary care, boarding, grooming, plus cat cafes and dog cafes as healing formats, building a warm, inclusive social space for people and pets. As the pet industry upgrades and "scientific pet care" spreads, new domestic brands are booming and the sector is diversifying and professionalizing. Pet Box Park aims to become Kunming and Yunnan's top destination for pet retail and services, helping open full-channel pet-economy growth in Yunnan.

Zone D Seafood BBQ Night Stall Box Park sits beside Xingyao Plaza and the Metro Line 1 New Asia Sports City exit. Over a hundred containers will form Kunming's most complete night-stall strip, gathering renowned seafood from Chaozhou-Shantou in Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, and beyond—drawing crowds and becoming a new night-market food landmark for Kunming.