The first thing any sensible person wants to know is where Nirav (Nick) Patel found 40 tons of high-quality Bahamian sand. The second is how he transported it to Farmington Hills.
Patel and his wife, Abhi, own Sandverse, an indoor sandbox that they are confident is the largest in Michigan.
Open since April, it was also the first indoor sandbox business in the state. Come to find out that indoor sandboxes are having a granular moment, and franchises from a national company are arriving on our shores − but Patel has earned the right to say, "We were the original. We're built by a Michigan family for other Michigan families."
That meant, among other things, that he had to discover the answers to the two sensible questions by himself. Other than the Caribbean,
where do you find a massive amount of fine, white, non-sticky, non-toxic, sterilized, OSHA compliant, silica-safe premium Bahamas sand?
York, Pennsylvania, it turns out. A broker there shipped it in two covered flat-bed trucks, each with 40 pallets holding 1,000 pounds in big whitish-gray sacks.
That was the easy part.
Long days, and a lot of them
Now the Patels are running a business where balmy weather is a concern, winter will be welcome, Canadian wildfires are an unfortunate godsend, and their 6-year-old son comes to play every weekend.
Shivay, a first-grader, was the inspiration for it all.
"Ever since he was 2, he loves sand and he loves construction toys," Patel said, sweeping an arm toward the 60-foot-long, 1,232-square-foot play area.
The Tonka trucks, the plastic buckets, the crane, the rocket, the slide, the plastic dinosaurs, the specially designed wallpaper with hard-hat jobsites giving way to outer space − "Whatever you see," he said, "it's for my son."
Patel, 41, of Canton, emigrated from India with his parents when he was 12. He grew up in Farmington Hills, went to Oakland Community College, and used to hang out with his friends at a Qdoba in the same strip mall at 12 Mile and Farmington Road where he launched Sandverse.
Pre-pandemic, he owned a couple of Subways, mostly leaving after the lunch rush. Now he works 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week, plus the few hours it takes to tidy up, sanitize the toys and smooth the sand with a yard-wide Home Depot rake.
He's committed, and his son is enchanted. But sometimes Shivay asks him, "Dad, when are you going to take a day off?"
Worries and wheelbarrows
Patel is learning as he goes, and as competition comes. A franchise from a Dublin, Ohio, company called Little Diggers opened in September in Farmington, three miles south, and the company's website says locations are pending in Canton and Utica.
For an entrepreneur, that's validation of the concept.
Patel has tinkered with after-hours yoga for adults. He has Spiderman scheduled for a visit Oct. 24. He's trying not to draw sweeping conclusions before he's been in place a full year, but it's clear that on glorious afternoons, parents and kids would rather be outside.
When no birthday parties are on the schedule and only half a dozen customers show up − it's $16 for one hour or $20 for two hours, with discounts for additional kids − he worries. When the summertime wildfires made breathing outdoors a struggle, he welcomed hundreds of children per day, and still worried.
It's a hazard of being a grown-up. What his client base does is play, and let imaginations roar in an otherwise quiet space.
There are no video games, no music, no buzzes or beeps. "We calm their brains down," Patel said. "They can hear each other."
Mid-afternoon on Wednesday, Oct. 7, first-time father Don Williams, of Novi, carried in his 1-year old, Alfonso, and had a quiet conversation with Patel at the registration desk.
Williams' wife had been there before, encouraged by another mom. Don Williams took off his shoes, marveled at the clean sand, and set about pouring some of it in a yellow plastic wheelbarrow for Alfonso to push. Alfonso found a truck and a tyrannosaurus, and sank to his knees.
"He's growing faster than I can learn to be a dad," said Williams, 34, who seemed to be doing just fine. "He has so much energy, I can't keep up."
The sand at least slowed him down, and Williams crouched alongside him.
Patel had built what he dreamed of, and now the Williams men were doing the same.
Reach Neal Rubin at NARubin@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: How to build Michigan's largest sandbox? First, find 40 tons of sand
