New sustainable modular housing veterans village model rolled out
NEW YORK: A $6 million residential community will serve as a prototype for Volumetric Building Companies’ (VBC) new sustainable, modular housing developed in the company’s Richmond County plant for vulnerable populations.
VBC produces prefabricated building components. In 2019, the company acquired the former Ritz-Craft Homes facility in Hamlet with plans to invest more than $12 million into the plant over a three-year period. The repurposed facility produces “volumes,” a term used to describe modular units for high-density residential construction.
Earlier this month, VBC announced it had established the VBC Giving Foundation dedicated to providing high-quality, respectfully designed, sustainable modular housing for working families, special needs adults, military veterans, seniors, and other people marginalized by the housing crisis.
The Bernard Spain Veterans Village Village Campus is the first project of the new Foundation. The four-story, 47-unit permanent housing community is a product of the volumetrix building system at VBC Manufacturing in Hamlet.
The $1 million seed equity necessary to bring the Veterans Village project to fruition was donated to the VBC Giving Foundation by the Joan and Bernard Spain Family foundation.
“My late husband, Bernard, an Army Veteran, always thought that veterans were not treated as well as they should be in terms of housing, healthcare and other benefits. The Joan and Bernard Spain Family Foundation is sponsoring the Veterans Village project to ensure our heroes live in safe, respectable, resilient apartments. I believe this will be a template across the country to build housing that our Veterans deserve,” said Joan Spain, trustee of the Bernard and Joan Spain Family Foundation.
The VBC Giving Foundation also partnered with VBC vendors, suppliers and other modular purveyors to make contributions to the project. Notably Saint-Gobain/Certainteed, which donated siding, insulation and grant funding totaling more than $175,000 and DalTile, whose discounted materials saved the project $10,000.
Vaughan Buckley, president of VBC, said it has been a long-held dream to use the company’s modular building expertise and resources to give back to the communities which have supported VBC.
“The VBC Giving Foundation makes that dream a reality and, now, with the help of our incredible donors and partners, the Foundation’s first project is on the path to providing much needed housing for some of the nation’s heroes. Being able to provide that efficiently and with limited red tape is an honor for our entire team, especially for the Veterans in our company, who are taking great pride in serving their less fortunate former military brothers and sisters,” said Buckley.
