Ready Shield Solutions, a new company that has been quietly redeveloping the old Cotton’s Holsum Bread Bakery on Choctaw Drive into a housing manufacturing facility, is up and running and ready for business.
The company, owned by veteran real estate developer Robert Day, promises to be a disruptor in the residential construction industry by bringing a new technology for constructing sustainable, affordable housing that will target vulnerable and underserved communities.
Though that model is similar to modular housing, it’s different in that Ready Shield will manufacture—not whole homes—but components that can then be easily assembled on site.
The components will be made from high-tech materials that are largely impervious to fire, water, mold and termites and, thus, are ideal for south Louisiana’s flood-prone climate.
“The construction industry hasn’t had a disruptor like other industries have,” says Sandy Avery, director of operations for R.W. Day and Associates, who led a small-group tour of the facility this morning. “We are a disruptor. We’re building affordable, sustainable, residential housing components in a factory for easy assembly. A lot of this technology has been around but it’s never been used in this way before.”
Day had planned to invest some $60 million in the manufacturing facility, according to documents filed with Louisiana Economic Development in mid-2018, when the project was first announced.
In the nearly 18 months since then, he has overhauled the 120,000-square-foot warehouse adjacent to the former bakery to accommodate a CAD room, where plans for the houses are designed, the 3D printers that mold the components and the sheer floor space needed to partially assemble them.
So far, about 15 employees work on site. Once the company is up and running, producing what Avery says could ultimately be as many as 500 single-family homes a year, the factory could employ 200-300 workers.
Key to the success of Ready Shield Solutions will be finding and acquiring land for the new houses. Day wanted to start in north Baton Rouge because he grew up in the underserved area, Avery says. So far, he owns about six lots on and around Hollywood Street.
But the company’s business model is predicated on finding large tracts of vacant or blighted property and redeveloping it with the new homes, which will cost about $100 per square foot.
While that may be beyond the price range of Day’s target market, plans also call for working with partner agencies to identify subsidies and “enough incentives to make sure that the price point is no more than $120,000,” Avery says, pointing out that East Baton Rouge Parish suffers from a lack of affordable housing stock.
“Our goal is to find areas where housing no longer exists, go in, building home sand work with local government entities to rebuild whole neighborhoods,” she says.
