Article By | Posted on 2010-06-22 12:50:45
The Ruby Group, a development, construction management and consulting company based in Goshen, N.Y., last week installed factory-made building modules used to create townhouse-style housing for up to 48 students at Sullivan County Community College in Loch Sheldrake.
The successful installation means the new housing is on schedule to be ready for students when they arrive for classes in late August.
“Using factory-made modular building components helped ensure that construction proceeds on schedule by eliminating possible delays caused by bad weather or other problems at an outdoor site,” said Howie Berman, a principal with The Ruby Group who is supervising the project. “We’re working on a tight schedule and absolutely must be completed on time, so we turned to modular construction and had most of the work completed in a factory to remove any uncertainty.”
The 11,100-square-foot building has three adjoining residences and is comprised of 18 modules that were positioned atop a Superior Walls pre-cast, insulated foundation. The modules were trucked to the site from a factory in Pennsylvania and hoisted into position by a crane, with workers guiding the sections into the proper positions.
“The whole process only took two days,” Berman said. “It would have taken a month or two to stick-build the housing on the site using traditional methods, even if you did your best to fast-track the work. The modular approach has dramatically reduced the time needed for construction and is allowing us to meet a demanding schedule.”
The modules were built by Haven Custom Homes, a Linthicum, Md.-based company that specializes in energy-efficient modular residential, commercial and institutional construction. Haven’s factories in South Carolina and Pennsylvania have built commercial buildings and homes in prestigious locations ranging from Hilton Head, S.C., to Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.
The new townhouses resemble traditional New England homes, with porches, pitched roofs and exterior walls with clapboard siding and shingles. The townhouses feature living rooms, kitchens, dining rooms and a total of 24 bedrooms, three of which will be handicapped adaptable. The new building will help address the demand for on-campus housing at the 1,700-student college.
The speedy approach didn’t compromise the quality of construction, Berman said. Modular buildings must be able to withstand transportation at highway speeds, Berman noted, so they actually have stronger floors, ceiling and walls than most stick-built homes. This housing was also designed to be extremely energy efficient.
The EcoGreen Community Housing, as it’s called, will meet or exceed Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), Energy Star and National Green Building Standards for energy efficiency and environmental sensitivity. Berman is one of a small number of homebuilders who have achieved the top-level LEED Platinum certification of their construction projects, for energy efficiency and construction quality.
The U.S. Green Building Council states: “Based on their Home Energy Rating System (HERS) scores, the average home certified under LEED for Homes since its launch in February 2008 is predicted to use an estimated 30 percent to 60 percent less energy than a comparable home built to International Energy Conservation Code.” More than 5,000 homes have received LEED for Homes certification, the USGBC says, and nearly 21,000 are registered for certification.
The student housing is being built under a unique private-public partnership between The Ruby Group and the Sullivan County Community College Dormitory Corporation. The building is expected to cost about $1.5 million to design and build. The Ruby Group is responsible for arranging financing and has leased the land required from the SCCC Dormitory Corporation. The housing will be managed by Longley Jones, the Syracuse, N.Y., company that manages the SCCC Dormitory Corporation’s existing residence hall.
Cutline: Ruby Group principals Howie Berman, left, and Pete Berman are pictured as modular student housing is erected at Sullivan County Community College in Loch Sheldrake. The use of factory-built components let The Ruby Group accommodate the college’s fast-track construction schedule.
