Finnish company plans $750 million Georgia factory for mass-produced modular homes

ADMARES plans six smart factories around the world, including one in Waycross, which is scheduled to start production in 2025, according to a rendering on the company’s website.

A Finnish company is planning a sprawling factory in South Georgia to achieve its goal of revolutionizing the housing industry by building houses on a robotic assembly line instead of a traditional construction site.

ADMARES is building one of six planned smart factories worldwide in Waycross. The company plans to employ 1,400 people and invest $750 million. The start of production is planned for 2025.

Based in the Finnish city of Turku, ADMARES announced that the company is in the process of moving its headquarters to the United States. The company has been applying its founders’ expertise in shipbuilding and other offshore industries to the modular construction sector for about a decade. Projects to date have mainly focused on hospitality, with ADMARES providing prefabricated rooms or entire hotels for major brands. The company has also produced floating villas in the Middle East, Europe and beyond.

Now, with the support of a number of German partners, the Finnish company is launching an ambitious global expansion, placing smart factories in strategic markets around the world.

ADMARES has been working with Porsche Consulting and MHP (a consulting firm owned by Porsche) since 2015 to design its factories, which will use connected devices and software from Siemens to transfer manufacturing practices from other sectors to the highly regulated housing sector that is changing despite the Prospects of 3D printed houses and other emerging innovations slow.

Using design software from Siemens, each home will have a “digital twin,” a method of creating complex physical products that enables simulation, testing, and monitoring using a digital representation of the object. Homeowners have continuous access to information about their home throughout its lifecycle, including air quality data. All units are tested in the controlled environment of the factory before being sent to the assembly site. In 2021, ADMARES claims to have erected a building in Brooklyn within two days. In addition to single-family homes, the company also builds apartment buildings and terraced houses.

ADMARES anticipates its momentum will allow it to build at scale at a time when housing construction is being hampered by rising costs and a shortage of available labor.

“Labor unavailability is a pressing issue for the construction industry worldwide. Our technology offers a solution as traditional site or construction workers are not required,” said Mikael Hedberg, CEO and founder of ADMARES, in a press release announcing the construction of a pilot home with Siemens.

Georgia officials hailed the company as a potential solution provider to the “worker housing” problems the state is trying to solve. The lack of affordable housing is seen as a constraint on output growth, as workers who are forced to live farther from their jobs have fewer opportunities to advance in their careers.

“Housing workers is a growing national challenge and Georgia is no exception. The new ADMARES facility helps meet this challenge and fill a niche that is crucial for economic development,” said GDEcD Commissioner Pat Wilson.

Housing was mentioned in the governor. Brian Kemp‘s State of the State address earlier this year, when the governor proposed a $35 million fund to support rural worker housing.