Senator sees housing solutions at Rise Modular

An Owatonna manufacturer last week showed U.S. Sen. Tina Smith how modular housing has become a game-changer for affordable housing.  

Smith toured Rise Modular, located on Lemond Road. The company manufactures full featured modules that are linked together to create larger structures. The company moved into its 150,000-square-foot facility in 2019.  

Founder and CEO Christian Lawrence said the company chose Owatonna because “we had super unique facility requirements, we sit on about 40 acres and need outdoor storage for the product. Also, the highway proximity and the population. It’s really a nice manufacturing city, a lot of manufacturing jobs and a strong work force.”  

Rise currently employs more than 170 people and is working on its seventh project, he added.  

Lawrence led Smith on a tour of the factory.  

“It’s a true assembly line,” he said, starting with framing the floor. Then the walls come on, finishes start to go in, then the ceiling and windows, cabinets, flooring, and all the finishes. Rise can build up to 16 feet wide and 13 feet tall.  

While all that’s being built, crews are working concurrently on the foundation and site work, Lawrence said. Finished modules are transported from Owatonna to the site, where they’re lifted into place with cranes.  

“It’s simultaneous construction, rather than linear,” he added.  

Factory construction means less waste, as a robotic saw optimizes cutting lumber and materials that might get tossed in a dumpster on a standard construction site are part of a Rise recycling program. The company also reduces the number of truck trips to a site by transporting full modules.  

It takes about five days from a complete foundation to a full stacked project, Lawrence said.  

Rise Modular is currently working on the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority’s (MPHA) Family Housing Expansion Project, which consists of four- and six-unit modular homes in 16 locations around the city. MHPA purchased dilapidated properties, demolishing existing structures.  

MPHA development project manager Juan Torres said having Rise work on modules while Frerichs Construction preps the site will reduce the construction timeline by 33%–and gets families into their new homes faster.  

It also results in less truck traffic, fewer workers on site, and construction moving indoors more quickly, which dramatically reduces the impact on the surrounding neighborhoods.  

After the tour, Smith said the innovation in construction will make it possible for people in Minneapolis public housing to have “places that are really worthy of who they are.” The project has gotten federal help through low-income housing tax credits and solar panels made affordable through the Inflation Reduction Act.  

As chair of the Senate Housing subcommittee, she said, one of the biggest issues Republicans and Democrats alike are trying to figure out is “how we can increase the supply of housing, and especially affordable housing, at a time when housing costs are ramping up so quickly.” 

“To see today how this form of construction, happening in a factory setting, is able to lower the cost of construction, and also build such incredible units is something I’m going to bring back,” she said. “I’m going to make sure federal law is supporting this kind of renovation… and that this is part of the solution.”  

MHPA has a waiting list of over 8,000 people in need of affordable housing–and that’s the case all around the country, Smith said, so “figuring out how to address this need like this project is doing… has relevance all over the country.”  

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