Plant Prefab, the first Certified B Corporation building technology company dedicated to sustainable design, materials and operations, has won a bid to prefabricate the final phase of custom homes in The Palisades at Olympic Valley, a luxury home community near Lake Tahoe designed by The Brown Studio.
Initially sourced to build one of the development’s first-phase duplex homes, Plant Prefab has since been retained to prefabricate all 33 of the development’s single-family homes.
The agreement to produce the Summit residences, the development’s premier offering of three 4,627-square-foot custom homes, is Plant Prefab’s third contract with the San Diego-based developer.
Deep Bhattacharya, Plant Prefab president and chief operating officer says: “We are honored to partner with The Brown Studio to complete The Palisades community.
“As the first new residential development in Olympic Valley in more than a decade, The Palisades showcases the value Plant Prefab can provide to developers of architectural housing in weather- and labor-constrained markets – where reliability and time and cost efficiency are essential.”
As with prior phases of the development, Plant Prefab is working closely with The Brown Studio on an integrated project delivery model for the Summit residences.
While Plant Prefab produced the other 2,630 to 2,800-square-foot homes in the development as finished Plant Panels and Plant Modules for on-site assembly in approximately 15 working hours, the larger scale and more complex designs of the Summit residences require a different approach.
Plant Prefab devised a phased delivery plan, timing factory production with site work to facilitate concurrent construction of all three Summit properties.
Structural steel, required to support the residences’ 15-foot ceilings and large spans of floor-to-ceiling glass, will ship first, followed by Plant Panels for the first floor of each home.
Second-floor Plant Panels and finished Plant Modules will follow in mid-summer, allowing site crews to perform interior finish work in parallel with exterior finish work and landscaping.
This sequenced approach will streamline the coordination of on-site labor and enable full completion of the residences before the onset of winter weather.
Lindsay Brown, principal and owner of The Brown Studio, says: “Plant Prefab’s strength is their willingness to take on a challenge and accommodate unique project requirements.
“They have the expertise to determine how to standardize almost any design into repeatable components, and the production processes and project management to deliver a complex product at a high level of finish.
“As the project developer and general contractor, we need a partner we can trust to deliver a consistent, high level of quality.
“We’ve continued to collaborate with Plant Prefab on subsequent phases of this project because of the expertise they bring to the table and the predictability of their process. This is a level of certainty we haven’t found anywhere else.”
Plant Prefab’s robust and growing contract backlog totals more than $100 million of single-family, multifamily and hospitality projects.
The company’s two factories are sold out through the end of 2022 and it is beginning to book production slots for its third factory, which is slated to come online in January 2023.
The 270,000-square-foot facility in the Tejon Ranch Commerce Center just south of Bakersfield, California will be Plant Prefab’s first automated facility driven by its proprietary technology platform.
The facility will also be the company’s first regional production hub, enabling Plant Prefab to serve projects throughout the Western US. Having secured a $30 million Series B round in August 2021, Plant Prefab is well capitalized to continue advancing its strategic growth priorities.
Steve Glenn, Plant Prefab founder and chief executive officer, says: “Architects and developers continue to choose Plant Prefab because of our expertise and our proven ability to execute on time and on budget.
“We’ve honed our systems and processes with unique architectural projects to address these needs in a way that other factories simply can’t match.
“And, when our automated factory opens in January, we’ll be positioned to serve custom single-family and multifamily projects even more efficiently and at significantly higher volumes.”
