Imagine a four-story apartment building going up in four days, and from steel.
It happened in Berkeley, a city known for its glacial progress in building housing.
This new 22-unit project from local developer Patrick Kennedy (Panoramic Interests) is the first in the nation to be constructed of prefabricated all-steel modular units made in China. Each module, which looks a little like sleekly designed shipping containers with picture windows on one end, is stacked on another like giant Legos.
Cost savings may be nil though:
The modules were shipped to Oakland then trucked to the site. Kennedy notes that the cost of trucking to Berkeley from the port of Oakland was more expensive than the cost of shipping from Hong Kong.
But the savings haven’t been as great as expected, he said. “Sixty-five to seventy-five-percent of the construction costs are still incurred on the site. In addition to the usual trades, we have crane operators, flagmen, truckers and special inspectors.”
You do know that I have a Prefab thread all nicely set up already and I already posted this eons ago!!!
The bureaucrats need to get paid!
I would like to see the actual costs. But even if prefab is 20% cheaper than stick built, the land and all other costs probably mean it is 5% saving on the total project cost. And since it is a new product, it will probably incur more liability. A big reason developers are gun shy on new building technology.
Time (saved) is money, no???
Hard to compare. How long did the build in China take plus transportation? Plus planning and approvals take all the time. Construction techniques are not the problem. 8 years of delays. Probably mostly caused by the city
The project, initially approved by the city in 2010 as a hotel, then re-approved in 2015 as studio apartments,will be leased to UC Berkeley for graduate student housing. Called Shattuck Studios , it’s slated to be open for move-in for the fall semester.
It’s 6 weeks by boat.