US-Offsite has quickly made a name for itself in the modular building industry. Founded in 2018 and based in Anderson, California, the company began production in 2023. With an office team of 13 and plans to almost double its production staff from 28, US-Offsite brings together decades of combined expertise in architecture, engineering, construction, and manufacturing.
“We wanted to see the full expression of everything working together,” says Chief Financial Officer Alex Shea. “As long as [those areas] were done separately, we couldn’t be as efficient or as innovative as we wanted to be. Going to a full volumetric modular builder was the next iteration—it was the full expression of that.”
Like others on his team, Shea brings a wealth of knowledge to US-Offsite. Before the creation of the company, Shea dedicated almost 20 years of his life to the financial world, including handling over $10 billion in portfolio management, derivatives trading, investment banking, and financial planning and analysis.
Along with Chief Executive Officer Dan Ferreira, Director of Modular Design and Sales Jedd Pellerin, and Director of Preconstruction and Estimating Josh Kaeber, the company’s knowledge base encompasses modular construction, architecture, fabrication, general contracting, construction engineering, real estate development, planning, estimating, financial feasibility, and a great deal more.
Why choose modular? “The short answer—and the one you’ll probably get from most people—is predictability, cost and schedule, speed, and quality control,” says Pellerin. “Nothing we are doing is proprietary or Earth-shattering; the materials we use, and our methodology in the shop, are a lot like typical wood frame construction. But we are in a controlled environment, which is great for the end user and our production teams.”
For Kaeber, modular construction is in his blood. Growing up in Germany, he was part of a family business that has been behind creating prefabricated housing at scale since the ’70s. Starting his career as a journeyman framer and later earning a degree in Construction Engineering and Business Administration, Kaeber has an intimate knowledge of the construction management and real estate development side of multifamily projects exceeding $200 million in value.
“The modular space in the construction industry is growing a lot,” he says. “I come from a country where the adoption of prefab construction technology is at 100 percent—no one in Germany is stick-framing buildings anymore, it just doesn’t exist. And we see that coming to the United States. There are so many advantages to it, and all the other major economic factors we see in the future are coming against stick-frame construction. Modular is the clear solution to more affordable housing.”
Ferreira, who has “been there, done that,” agrees. “I’ve done it the stick-built way and I experienced budget- and scheduling-related pains,” he shares. “Prefab is the answer.”
To meet growing demand for many types of structures—including multi-family, affordable housing, student living, hotels, senior living, and disaster relief—US-Offsite currently has a 38,000-square-foot facility and will almost double that by mid-2025. Based on a 72-acre lot with room for expansion, the company’s goal is a permanent 220,000-square-foot facility. Currently under construction, the new facility will accommodate two to three factory lines and up to 350 new team members when completed in about 18 months.
The reason for creating a smaller facility was to gain initial momentum. “Rather than open a mega-facility like a lot of other people—because that has been pretty well proven to be a recipe for disaster—we decided to do a pop-up factory and will move over to the big one once we have the momentum,” says Ferreira.
Made from wood and under five stories, US-Offsite’s products are ideal for multi-unit developments. In California, the five-story maximum for wood structures exists because of seismic rating. “It’s not a prefabrication limitation, it’s a wood construction methodology limitation,” Shea explains.
And of course, from the speed of construction to lower costs, there are a plethora of advantages to modular wood buildings. Creating modules in a factory setting instead of onsite means far less waste. Raw materials and labor don’t have to be transported to job sites, and the yield is much higher. Instead of sending 50 trucks to the site, US-Offsite sends just one, saving fuel and drastically reducing carbon emissions.
“We liken ourselves to a multi-faceted multi-tool on a developer’s tool belt,” says Shea. “We take 70 percent of a developer’s unknown variables—subcontractor availability and willingness to collaborate with others, uncertain execution time horizon, weather, vertical permitting timelines, selection indecision—and make it a known quantity by locking in a cost ceiling and a delivery date, thereby unlocking a developer’s ability to execute on their pro formas and deliver more housing. At our large facility in Anderson, California, we can produce 900 to 1,000 finished units (of approximately 500 to 700 square feet each) for endless use cases up to five stories: multifamily, hotels, student housing, large-scale SFR and townhome developments, and transitional and disaster relief housing, to name a few. That’s equivalent to nearly 80,000 square feet of housing per month!” he says.
The company’s workers benefit by showing up to the same clean, safe, climate-controlled, well-lit facility where they have all their equipment close at hand, and this alone is proving to be a benefit for US-Offsite’s recruiting new staff. “Their lifestyle and quality as a construction worker, and their ability to train and promote, is significantly better than the traditional route,” comments Shea. “We also don’t have to worry about seasonal employment, because our workers are in a controlled environment.”
Then there is the benefit of speed. Regular construction is expensive, requires multiple specialized trades going to and from job sites, and takes time to build, factors that are proving wooden modular construction to be a clear winner with time-to-market, especially with North America’s urgent need for more housing.
“According to McKinsey Global Institute, offsite construction can expedite entire project timelines by 50 percent and reduce costs by 20 percent,” says the company on its website. “By 2025, California will have a housing gap of 3.5 million. US-Offsite is positioned to be a pivotal part of the solution so that Californians (and beyond) can thrive for years to come.”
On average, it takes US-Offsite just six months to complete a 20,000-square-foot structure from the time the contract is signed. Once projects like this reach the company’s assembly line, it only takes about a week for completion.
On the preconstruction side, US-Offsite has around a dozen projects in the works at a given time. This speedy timeline simply can’t be met with regular construction, making wooden modular perfect for urgent housing needs. “With economics the way they are now, the hottest market we see is in interim housing, which would be government-funded, rapid deployment housing,” says Shea. “It’s a big deal on the West Coast, and there’s a lot of acceleration in that space.”
This applies less to what is known as affordable housing and more toward entry-level housing for people in transition out of supportive housing. It is essentially government-subsidized housing with wraparound services. “We call it interim, so it’s typically transitional housing,” he adds. Funded by government and non-profit organizations, some of these projects are around 50 units, and can include micro one-bedroom studio suites with full kitchens or baths or shared bath amenities.
US-Offsite believes in taking a holistic approach to its work, starting with product innovation, which translates to a more competitive price and timeline. And that innovation starts with the company’s workforce. A second chance employer, US-Offsite is not only building housing for people in transition, but employs men and women in transition, including those coming out of a program, home, or state penitentiary.
“We are looking to employ people who need to be trained and grow, and the factory is a wonderful training ground and a great environment for people learning skills with high accountability,” comments Shea. “It’s a great place for people to get a fresh start. So we have that component. The holistic part is that we manufacture housing and build up programs for people and training. We also have meetings directly with city officials and developers and work with them to solve their problems, so we are designing a product for cities and counties specifically,” he says.
“We are talking to the people who do the wraparound services, the counseling, and who run these houses, and we are designing the home for them and their needs. So it’s not just about a product, it’s about all the people involved: the end user, the operator, the people in our plant building it—every person who touches it, we consider all of them… We see ourselves as a very reliable, integrated plant, meaning we do more than just build modules: we solve developers’ problems,” he adds. “And we see ourselves as a strategic partner to developers. If we were going to fast-forward several years, we see a network of plants with coverage across the U.S.,” he shares.
“We also see a lot of partnerships with non-profits, getting their housing built. I see us as being a reliable, fully scaled-up modular manufacturer that’s creative and a positive force in the industry—a model that other people can follow.”
