icon Blueprint for August

May the Force Be with Us

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3 min read

The future seems to have arrived on our doorstep. Robots have been employed to construct multifamily homes. If you’re a SciFi fan, you no longer have to go to the movies, you can visit a prefab housing factory instead.

If I told you filmmaker George Lucas (who tried to build affordable housing on his Marin County studio property igniting a star war with rich NIMBYs) was behind this, you’d say, “Why, of course!” But this innovation is not being led by a fantasist or a rogue company trying to nudge its way into our industry. As you’ll read in these pages, robotics are now being utilized by the likes of Caleb Roope of the Pacific Companies,

Geoff Brown of USA Properties and Bill Whitman of Somerset Development, all members of NH&RA’s Board who have previously compiled impressive track records following established protocols. It’s risky. It’s gutsy. Instead of the same-old, same-old, it’s a why-not-try.

“It got to the point where the costs were so high that building became very difficult,” says Roope. “I’ve worked with modular construction for about 15 years, but there is a limited number of modular suppliers in the West. So, I knew I had to do something myself.” So Roope joined with modular veteran Rick Murdock and consultant Curtis Fletcher to build the 400,000-square-foot Autovol Volumetric Modular factor in Namba, ID pictured on our cover.

Now Roope’s company is partnering with Brown’s on the first project to use Autovol’s products, Virginia Street Apartments, 301 affordable studios for seniors in San Jose, CA, one of the ten most expensive housing cities in the country. “We’ve been worrying about the labor shortage for a while,” says Brown. “The whole modular movement morphed out of this.” Staff writer Mark Olshaker chronicles both the building of the factory and its results on the street. (The Autovol Solution)

Across the country in Washington, DC, Whitman’s Somerset won bidding rights to the Urban Village, a 50-year-old plot of 73 garden apartments now being transformed into 230 affordable units using modern Passive House design and panelization created by Blueprint Robotics of Baltimore. “The city we’re building in now is going to be a drastically different climate in 20 years,” says Whitman. “So, even if we can’t quantify that now, we’re building for the future.” (Passive & Panelized)

In this issue, we also share with you staff writer Mark Fogarty’s summary of a new report from Harvard’s Joint Center on Housing titled More for Less? An Inquiry into Design and Construction Strategies for Addressing Multifamily Housing Costs. (Blueprint for Cutting Costs)

In our August COViD-19 Response Report, columnist Scott Beyer reports on a good opportunity that emerged from the bad outbreak: California’s initiative to convert hotels struggling under the pandemic into housing for the homeless. (Housing USA) And we present a recap of a panel at NH&RA’s virtual asset management conference on the impact of the pandemic on property insurance costs.

All of this reporting demonstrates that in these rough times, the force is innovation. May it stay with us.

Marty Bell
Editor