Posted on: Tuesday, February 1, 2005
Firm plans steel housing plant
By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Big Island Bureau
HILO, Hawai'i — A Kailua, Kona, developer plans to open a new state-of-the-art manufacturing plant for steel housing components late next month, a step the company says will allow Westpro Holdings LLC to erect finished homes in 60 days flat.
The $2.5 million manufacturing plant will also create as many as 150 new jobs in already-bustling Kona this year. With Kona's limited labor pool and low unemployment rate, Westpro's affiliate Aloha Aina Homes LLC has scheduled a job fair for Feb. 15 to recruit the workers it needs to ramp up production at its plant.
The company erected a 40,000-square-foot warehouse on 6.8 acres formerly used as a baseyard for earth moving operators in the Honokohau industrial area.
Westpro Holding President Alan Dickler said raw steel will be imported to the plant and fashioned into large, modular-type building pieces that will be trucked to construction sites and erected.
Westpro now builds steel frame homes using panelized construction pieces it buys from another manufacturer. With panelized projects, sides of a structure are built off-site and then hauled in and propped up on the slab for assembly.
Aloha Aina's FAST Tract Housing Plant will go a step farther, assembling whole sections of structures at the factory, and hauling them to the construction site to put the modular sections together.
Material costs are higher with steel than with traditional lumber construction, but the time saved with the modular construction makes up for the cost of materials, Dickler said.
Dickler said a wood frame house might take four to five months to complete from start to finish, while a panelized construction house might take four months. With FAST Tract, the construction time from raw ground to finished house can be slashed to 60 days, he said.
"We see the benefit in the timing," he said. "It's much faster."
Sheet rock, cabinets and other pieces will be installed in the modular sections at the fabrication plant, which means the company will be seeking workers to handle tasks such as framing, cabinet installation, electrical and plumbing work, and tape and spackle work for sheet rock installation.
With the construction industry booming in Kona, Dickler said he expects the jobs will draw a partially skilled workforce, and will offer unskilled workers an opportunity to pick up construction-related know-how.
Dickler declined to disclose the pay ranges for plant workers, but said jobs at the plant will offer pay comparable to the pay ranges at a big-box retailer.
The company said in a written announcement that applicants should be familiar with assembly and measuring tools, and must be familiar with simple shop math. Jobs entail frequent bending, stooping, lifting and carrying, but previous construction experience is not required.
All employees will be subject to random drug testing before hire.
Aloha Aina will initially be seeking 80 workers, with plans to take on as many as 150 later. The company expects it will take six months to reach full production of 400 homes a year, all of which will be sold on the Big Island.
The Aloha Aina job fair on Feb. 15 will be from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. at King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel, with positions available in assembly, administration, accounting and management.
The first FAST Tract houses built in 2005 will be marketed as house and lot packages in the Discovery Harbor subdivision in Ka'u, the company said in a written announcement.
Discovery Harbour Realty LLC is developing the Discovery Harbor units, which will be built by Avalon Hawai'i Construction LLC. Both firms are Westpro-affiliated companies.
Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 935-3916.
