NWA IC
Northwest Arkansas (NWA) is emerging as a leading regional center for the use and development of Mass Timber. In addition to the world’s largest retailer, Walmart, committing to use 1.1M cubic feet of CLT for its new headquarters in Bentonville, more than five mass timber and hybrid building designs have been successfully completed across the region, spanning from Blue Crane’s Greenway Office Park in Bentonville to residential units on the state’s flagship university campus.
Client
Blue Crane
Year
2021-
Category
Program Management
Type of Work
Wood
CLT
Modular Bathrooms
Affordable Housing
While these projects have played a significant role in introducing mass timber to the regional construction market, their impacts have been limited to the institutional and commercial real estate segments.
There remains an urgent need for applications in Mass Timber that meaningfully reduce the regions demand for affordable/ market rate housing.
The NWA IC program bridges the gap in affordable housing availability.
The programs fist objective is to design and deploy a modular kit of parts specifically tailored for market rate housing.
NWAIC develops and make this same kit of parts available to the wider local market. This reduces a signficant barrier to adoption, making the risk and overhead involved less prohibitive for the local developer.
Sustained production of modular bathrooms and CLT panels at scale meaningfully improves unit economics making the IC kit of parts more accessible to the broader market.
Modly acts as program manager and coordinator for the NWAIC program.
In 2023, the NWAIC program received a first prize award for the Mass Timber Competition, entering against a national field. Grant proceeds from the award will be used to fund the development of the program. The award is funded by the Softwood Lumber Board and the USDA Forest Service in order to promote the adoption of sustainable timber products in the broader building market.
The NWA IC program will bridge the gap in affordable housing availability through two sets of activities. The first is to design and deploy a modular kit of parts specifically tailored for market rate housing. We intend to make this same kit of parts, including the standardized designs and our supplier network, available to the wider local market. This naturally reduces a barrier to adoption, making the risk and overhead involved less prohibitive for the local developer. Even more importantly, higher volume sales for our suppliers reduces the overall costs for everyone in the program. Our bathroom supplier’s improved and sustained production volume will spur the efficiency gains and line investments that bring down unit costs in turn. Improved sales volumes on CLT will contribute to lowering the execution cost at the site at the installer level and spur more competitive bidding from other suppliers.
Modly worked with the development team to exectute a program pilot project. Responsibilities included early evaluation of design, cost and supply chain constraints and the development of execution strategy. Modly also led the supplier selection process, and assisted the developer in identifying the primary consultant team for the program effort.
Our design expertise allows us to cost effectively vet potential IC methods and systems early. At NWAIC we developed a suite of guidance documents for the developer and design team reducing the time needed for onboarding.
We also assisted the owner on procurement and supply chain development for key suppliers.
We see our suppliers as partners. When things get tough in production, we know the enormous impact these relationships have on our success.
