The owner of the Box Factory is planning a pedestrian promenade along Arizona Avenue to draw more attention to a new slate of bar and restaurant tenants.

Killian Pacific of Vancouver, Washington, has agreements with the Portland-based sports bar River Pig Saloon, a Bend bakery and a healthy bowls-style eatery to occupy 7,000 square feet of space along Arizona Avenue that was previously home to Oregon CrossFit, development manager Jeremy McPherson said.

While renovating space to accommodate the new tenants, Killian Pacific is also looking to expand the Box Factory’s paved parking area and tear out a service drive that currently runs parallel to Arizona. The service driveway, which dates back to the building’s industrial days, will be replaced with a wide plaza and promenade, McPherson said.

“We can bring a lot higher profile to those restaurants along Arizona Avenue,” McPherson said.

The Box Factory has housed a hodgepodge of offices, studios, stores and eating and drinking establishments but is evolving into a retail and restaurant center as major new construction projects go up around it. Situated between Arizona Avenue and Industrial Way, the Box Factory is within walking distance of a new Springhill Suites by Mariott hotel, the Crane Shed office building under construction and the Base Camp condominiums.

While attracting more retail users, which pay higher rents than office and industrial users, Killian Pacific will not lease the Box Factory to national chains, McPherson said.

“It’s always been this 100-year-old mill building occupied by homegrown Bend startups,” he said. “Picky Bars, the Longboard Store, Atlas Brewing. These are not Five Guys and Chipotle and Starbucks. I said ‘no’ to those guys. That’s not what this property’s all about.”

Killian Pacific is carefully curating the tenant mix, said Nickol Hayden-Cady, owner of Foxtail Bakeshop, one of the three tenants planning to occupy the former CrossFit space. McPherson heard about Foxtail through owners of The Brown Owl, another Box Factory tenant, and asked Hayden-Cady to consider the building, Hayden-Cady said.

“He wants locals who want to get to that next step,” she said.

Foxtail plans to move from a standing-room-only space on NW Columbia Street in the fall. At the Box Factory, Hayden-Cady envisions a patisserie-style dessert bar with light breakfast and lunch fare.

River Pig, which is already advertising the addition of its Bend location, plans to open in late August, according to a recent post on the bar’s Facebook page. The other new tenant is Fix & Repeat, a first-time restaurant, McPherson said.

On the other side of the building, facing Industrial Way, The Bend Tour Company is expanding.

The Box Factory will see more renovations and new tenants over the next 12 months, McPherson said. “There’s a lot of short-term leases,” he said. “We’re converting the building as we go to longer leases with more mixed-use style users as we go.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7860, kmclaughlin@bendbulletin.com