Affordable housing just got a little more accessible in Grand Prairie — or really anywhere a plot of land is available.
HiFAB hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday morning at its modular home factory, featuring turnkey homes designed by award-winning Texas architecture firm Lake | Flato.
HiFAB builds single-family modular homes and aims to produce high-design homes faster and more competitively priced than traditional on-site construction. A simple purchasing process allows homeowners to make a $5,000 deposit, design their home online, and tell the manufacturers where they want it to go. The new homeowner is responsible for securing utility connections.
HiFAB provides a fixed concrete foundation, a metal roof, and three layers of exterior stucco applied on-site. Residents choose the stucco color, interior color package, soft-close cabinet front style, tile patterns, quartz countertop color, and upgrade options.
HiFAB CEO Brent Jackson said the 1,900-square-foot homes “feel every bit like 2,300 square feet.”
“A lot of that has to do with the design,” he said. “It has to do with the selection of interior finishes. It has to do, quite frankly, with our partnership with Lake | Flato.”
HiFAB Developments
HiFAB homes are available to private clients and developers. The first development client is Tree Tops near Round Top, Texas.
At Monday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony, Jackson hosted tours of the factory, where homes are under construction.
“One thing y’all may have noticed is this is a really tall building,” Jackson said. “We’re a volumetric modular company, not panelized. Once these modules get approved by the state, then we’re off to the races.”
Fourteen stations are set up in the factory, taking the homes from start to finish in 30 days.
“We want to make sure we provide a product, once we get to scale, that will allow us to push costs down and sell to first responders,” Jackson said. “That personally butters my biscuits. That’s why I get up every morning. That’s why I ultimately want to see this company succeed, so we can sell to [emergency medical technicians], to physicians, to firefighters, to police officers, to people who, in my opinion, are a large part of the backbone of this country. They’re doing the heavy lifting and blocking and tackling out there.”
The homes range in price from about $274,000 for a two-bedroom to $384,000 for a three-bedroom and will be delivered within six to nine months to land selected by the buyer or to an existing development.
Sustainable Building
The Grand Prairie factory is surrounded by trees on a lush site on Robinson Road.
“The factory supports a low-carbon design-and-build process by eliminating the massive amounts of waste widely seen in the residential construction industry,” said HiFAB spokeswoman Kristie Ramirez with Giant Noise Public Relations.
Jackson said sustainable development and a health-focused working environment are among HiFAB’s core values.
“As an example, we use no-VOC paint,” he said. “We have all sorts of examples of choices we’ve made that may be a little more expensive but in the long run are better for everyone’s health.”
Modular home builder Wes Minster has guided the construction process to create quality homes.
“They’ve really put together something that is special and unique, not just pretty but functional,” Jackson said.
He added that the factory environment offers an opportunity for all team members to communicate.
“We’re really all about doing a lot with a little,” Jackson said. “It’s all about being efficient. The other reason we do things on-site and in-house is to have the team jelling. It’s like a football team or a soccer team where you’ve got to have everybody working together. The people who are blocking the line are just as important as people catching touchdown passes.”
