Entekra to build off-site house construction plant in California
Irish housebuilding firm Entekra will construct a huge plant in Modesto, California which it says will deliver 3,000 homes a year once fully operational.
The site will construct homes in a fully automated process and is expected to be open by May 2019.
The construction phase is predicted to create around 500 US jobs and 250 staff will operate the facility once it is up and running.
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Entekra finalised the deal at the SelectUSA Investment Summit, once of the US’s most important events designed to attract foreign investment into the country.
The company’s CEO Bran Keogh also said that Entekra plans to build another off-site construction plant in Southern California in 2020, which will see another 250 people employed.
Off-site, precast construction is growing in prominence due to its cost and timesaving capabilities.
According to a report by McKinsey & Company, the global construction industry is suffering from a $1.6trn productivity gap, something which off-site building methods can help to reduce.
Indeed, global demand for precast construction is set to grow at a rate of 6.5% a year, reaching $185.35bn in value by 2023.
Asia Pacific is the largest consumer of precast concrete products, with big markets including China, India, Japan, Indonesia and Australia.
In an interview with Construction Global magazine, Senior Market Advisor for Techcrete John Hunt explained another reason for the rise in demand.
“Developers with new capital are coming into the market developing homes and they’ve had to look beyond the existing supply chains at more productive, cost certain methods of delivering homes,” he said.
