Launched less than two years ago, Rise Modular welcomes tenants to its first completed project on February 1, 2021. MOD-42 is a 30-unit apartment building in the Standish-Ericsson neighborhood of Minneapolis with a mix of studio and one-bedroom apartments, in walking distance of the Blue Line and close to shopping and recreation. Built as a market rate apartment with no public subsidy, MOD-42 offers rents affordable between 60 and 70% of median income.
Christian Lawrence is the founder and CEO of Rise Modular, a fast-growing manufacturer of commercial modular buildings based in Minneapolis. Christian’s background is in finance, but a passion for real estate and design brought him back to Minneapolis in 2016 to start a real estate development business, where he learned that development projects were increasingly difficult to make work financially. Traditional construction methods were simply becoming too expensive, and he became fixated on finding a solution to this problem.
He researched options and learned that offsite construction methods are widely used in Europe and Asia, and are starting to be used in the US. He became convinced that modular is the future of residential construction because it can speed up construction and lower costs, but he couldn’t find a supplier in the Midwest, so he researched viability and wrote the business plan for Rise Modular.
In February of 2019, Christian made his first hire and subsequently recruited a world class team from across the country to design a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility. In October of 2019, Rise Modular bought a vacant ~150,000 sq. ft. industrial facility in Owatonna and transformed it into a modular factory. The company’s first project is MOD-42, where Rise served as the developer, general contractor, and manufacturer. Rise began manufacturing in May during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and “stacked” the modules in just 6 days in September.
Now with 90 employees, Rise Modular has commenced building modules for a 192-unit apartment project in St. Paul being developed by the Ackerberg Group and working with Opus as the general contractor and DJR as the architect. Rise now has more than 20 projects in various stages of planning, totaling over 2,000 housing units, in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Colorado. Christian was recently named by Forbes Magazine as a 2021 30 Under 30 Honoree in Manufacturing and Industry.
Christian was drawn to modular construction in part because of the positive social impacts it can bring to residential construction. For example, a robotic sawmill at the factory prepares all of the construction lumber to dramatically reduce construction waste, while the climate-controlled, ergonomically-designed environment of the factory means better working conditions for Rise Modular employees. With the opportunity to do construction work indoors and at the same location every day, workers who have stayed away from the conventional construction trades because of harsh weather working conditions and far-flung worksites can now choose this important profession. Notably this can bring more women and people of color to the field, and Rise has already met with participants in the Construction Partnering Program of the Association of Women Contractors.
Rise Modular has also taken steps to make sure that the benefits of modular construction are connected to the development of affordable housing, because the cost of developing new housing rises faster than household incomes every year. The cost and time savings that modular construction delivers can stretch limited affordable housing subsidies to deliver more affordable apartments – and Rise Modular is committed to making that happen.
• More than a dozen developers who specialize in affordable housing have toured the Rise Modular plant and met with their design and construction experts.
• Rise has engaged a consultant specifically to work with affordable developers to identify and overcome the barriers that may arise when linking modular construction with the complexities of affordable housing finance.
• Rise Modular was a sponsor and speaker at the Construction Revolution Summit (www.constructionrevolution.io ) in 2019.
• Rise hopes to partner with affordable housing developers who plan to apply for the Innovative Construction selection preference recently announced by Minnesota Housing for their 2021-2022 Multifamily Consolidated RFP.
Key learnings:
Many developers are interested in the benefits of modular construction, but very few want to be the first to try it. By developing MOD-42 as the developer, general contractor and module manufacturer, Rise Modular has provided an example for all to see and learn from.
Rise has invited developers, contractors, architects, engineers, suppliers and lenders with a serious interest in modular construction to tour its plant in Owatonna, because the opportunity to see how the modules come together really helps to highlight how the technology works in a real project.
Watch the Rise Modular video: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6722181671313121280
For more information contact Mary Tingerthal, Consultant, marytingerthal@usa.net.
Follow Rise Modular on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rise-modular/