A job making blinged-out shoeboxes wouldn’t normally seem like a natural career move for someone who spent most of his life taking care of lawns. But after 18 years of doing just that, Cedric Townsend was looking for a more meaningful way to spend his days.
“I wanted to find something besides a lawn career to occupy my time,” says the 45-year-old.
And so his business, Nice Box, was born. Since February, Townsend — nicknamed “Broke MacGyver” by his friends, thanks to his ability to build anything by hand — has been crafting custom-made sneaker “closets” that can store up to 60 pairs of kicks.
“A friend of mine showed me a picture of a regular Jordan shoebox that she wanted for her son’s 16th birthday, but she wanted it on a larger scale,” he recalls. “I told her to give me two weeks and I could knock it out.”
He says the concept for Nice Box is a “nightclub for your shoes.”
“I was just looking to design a shoebox better than anybody else’s,” he explains.
The boxes come in two sizes (a 4-by-3-foot box is $900; a nearly 7-foot-long box is $1,200) and are made from plywood. Multicolor LED lights on the inside and outside add extra pizazz. His two most popular models — the “Jordan” and the “Christian Louboutin” — can be further customized to fit a customer’s personal style.
Townsend happened upon his first star client — Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Charles Johnson — somewhat by luck. “I started to send messages to a bunch of athletes on their Instagram pages, hoping at least one would hit me back,” he says. “Johnson was the only one who replied.”
As word got around, Townsend courted other high-profile shoe aficionados, including athletic heavy-hitters like New England Patriots running back James White and Detroit Pistons center Andre Drummond, as well as rappers 2 Chainz and Rick Ross. He’s so in demand, in fact, that he recently moved his workspace from his Minnesota-based garage and to a larger workshop.
Despite his buzzy boldface following, however, Townsend’s road to success wasn’t always smooth. Family, friends and neighbors were initially discouraging, saying that he would never be able to make a living off designing luxury shoeboxes.
“There was a motivation within me to prove them all wrong — I worked 12 hours a day,” he says. “I had a vision and a focus and I knew I could make this happen.”
Now, Townsend’s naysayers are loyal customers — and stores like Macy’s, Nordstrom, Cabela’s and Home Depot have even reached out to make boxes for them as well.
“I look at my business like I am trying to be a rapper,” explains Townsend. “My box is my demo tape. I have to go out there and grind just like they do.”