An Ireland based firm that picked Ripon for its first foray into United States to locate a facility to support housing construction has secured a state tax credit on the promise of creating more jobs.
Entekra Inc. is manufacturing fully-integrated off-site solutions for residential and commercial construction projects at a plant in Ripon at 338 Industrial Street.
It has earned a $750,000 California Competes Tax Credit based on its investment and creation of jobs. The firm made a $10 million investment in state-of-the-arts design, engineering, and construction technologies at its Ripon location.
Entekra streamlines the construction process by leveraging the integration and application of software, engineering, technology and modern methods of construction to consolidate a multitude of tasks that are normally parceled among architects, engineers, building materials suppliers and contractors. According to the firm’s website, the company’s complete building systems offer a more profitable alternative to the inefficient and often problematic on-site stick-built construction methods currently used for more than 90 percent of new-home construction in the United States.
With more than 80 years of combined experience and the use of highly efficient automated construction technology, the Entekra team holds a number of patents in Ireland on the manufacturing process and related equipment. Team members have also pioneered several industry-first innovations, including the off-site construction of the world’s first wood framed six-story building and one of the world’s first zero-carbon houses.
The announcement of Entekra receiving the state income tax agreement approved last month in Sacramento by the CCTC Program Committee was made at Tuesday’s Ripon City Council meeting.
“Deploying our technologically-advanced off-site built solutions in the U.S. requires a significant capital investment in facilities, equipment, and personnel,” said the company’s CEO Gerard McCaughey.
Added City’s Director of Planning & Economic Development Ken Zuidervaart: “Entekra currently occupies an existing 25,000-square-foot facility (in Ripon) and expects to quadruple its physical plant by early 2019.”
Entekra chose Ripon for its first U.S. manufacturing facility over sites in Florida, Texas and North Carolina.
Zuidervaart views this as a testament to Ripon’s economic viability for new business investment.
He noted that City staff coordinated the meeting with the San Joaquin County Economic Development Association, a non-profit dedicated to the county’s economic vitality, introduced the CCTC Program to Entekra for the competitive application to Gov. Brown’s Office of Business and Economic Development.
Entekra is currently in Los Banos doing its first build on a housing development.
By completely integrating concept, design and engineering with off-site manufacturing and on-site assembly, Entekra delivers all structural elements of a building – prefabricated wall panels, prefabricated floor panels, prefabricated roof trusses, and all relevant materials – in component form for on-site assembly. What makes Entekra’s FIOSS unique in the U.S. market is that it is a complete system which is custom manufactured to the exacting specifications of each project.
Entekra’s FIOSS allows for the structural shell of a building to be assembled and made weather-tight in an average of three to four days on the job site with significantly less labor, as compared to an average of three to four weeks for traditional stick-built construction. In the case of multi-story buildings, Entekra’s FIOSS becomes even more appealing with the savings being measured in months rather than weeks compared to traditional stick-framing methods. Trades may also begin work earlier and simultaneously on both the interior and exterior, accelerating the overall construction timeline by up to 33 percent.