Permitting Services Podcast

Offsite Construction

• Gail Lucas • Season 2 • Episode 12

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This Montgomery County Department of Permitting Services (DPS) Podcast episode, “Offsite Construction,” highlights a local construction project that is primarily being built offsite. DPS Customer Support and Outreach Division Chief Gail Lucas, who hosts the podcast, is joined by Chris Allen, who is the assistant to the DPS director, and Joseph Phelan, who is the director of operations at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Potomac. Their conversation notes the advantages of offsite construction, the variety of modular construction projects around the County, and the role of DPS when it comes to codes and permitting, as well as the importance of predesign consultations for those considering offsite construction. They discuss the difference between modular construction and mobile homes and provide tips for listeners who may be exploring this construction option for a future project. Got an idea or question for an upcoming podcast episode? Email your ideas and questions to dps.podcast@montgomerycountymd.gov.

Gail:

Welcome to the Montgomery County Department of Permitting Services podcast. I'm Gail Lucas, your host. I'm also the Division Chief for the Customer Support and Outreach Division here at DPS. Joining me on the podcast today is Chris Allen, Special Assistant to the DPS Director, and Joseph Phelan, I pronounced that correctly?

Joseph:

Yes, you did.

Gail:

Director of Operations for St Andrew's Episcopal School in Potomac, Maryland. Welcome, gentlemen. Today we're discussing an exciting new building project at the school and the use of off-site construction, and we're going to learn what off-site construction means. But let's start with you, Joe. Please tell us a little bit about your role at the school and what this innovative process or project is, how that all happened.

Joseph:

Sure. So it's interesting. I've been fortunate enough to be at St Andrew's Episcopal School for 20 years. This October, and what's really interesting? St Andrew's is about 47 years of age and within about the last 10 to 15 years, we have almost doubled our student population. Now what's interesting? When you think about student population doubling, it's like a town. You need more buildings, you need more infrastructure, you need more support space and literally we have been in a growth period for, once again, 15 plus years.

Joseph:

And it has been one project after another project, and I've been very fortunate to be coming and working with Department of Permitting Services since I arrived at St Andrews back in 2005. And so we've gone everywhere, from just renovating a small kitchen to adding major buildings, and my job is the school's project executive, as their PMP that oversees that executive, as their PMP that oversees that. So I act as a project executive and oversee the whole entire nuts and bolts of the project, from design to hiring subcontractors, working with you guys, permitting services which is probably one of the biggest tools and actually execution, and that means either clearing a site, building a building, use and occupancy beneficial occupancy so yeah.

Gail:

Let's back up a little bit. Chris, can you explain to our listeners what the term off-site construction means, and are we seeing more of these kinds of projects in Montgomery County?

Chris:

Absolutely Off-site construction is a method of construction where the majority of the initial construction is performed in an off-site controlled environment. These are typically built in a factory where the nuts and bolts, the framing, the electrical, the HVAC, the plumbing systems those are all installed in a factory setting and then typically shipped to the job site where they're going to be installed. And so as a part of that process it's often referred to as either off-site construction or industrialized and modular buildings, so those terms can be used interchangeably. We've definitely been seeing a growth of these over the years. The kind of basic model is seeing a construction trailer all the way up to schools, multifamily dwellings.

Chris:

There's a lot of options out there for owners and what that does you know. It usually streamlines the installation process. Instead of doing a ground up building on site. A lot of that work is done off site, dropping the modular units there. You know permits are still required through dps. There are some additional approvals that are that are part of the process. But one of the big things we look at is is the zoning and land development aspects is. So we make sure that the that the property is zoned for the proposed use. It has the setbacks that we also have our stormwater management and sediment control measures. So we have a lot of those things that we look at here at DPS, knowing that the construction of the building is primarily approved through the state of.

Gail:

Maryland. Okay, Joe, why did you all decide to build like this? Was there? Did you deliberately do this? Was it something that was proposed to you? How did you all decide to do offsite construction?

Joseph:

So it's, that's a. It's a fabulous question, Gail. We actually took a look at this back in 2018. Okay, so back in 2018, we were we needed to build a new lower school, Okay, and so we really didn't have a tremendous amount of time to build it, and so we thought maybe we could go with offsite construction and then just bring the building and build it literally like excuse the term Legos stack each one of the units.

Joseph:

But I want to paint a picture. Imagine you're dropping your your child off at school. It's about 8 AM in the morning. You've got children running around, you've got buses, you've got parents, you got faculty and staff showing up. Ok, a normal school campus. And we're a campus. We're not a school building, so we have multiple buildings. When you start to think about the risk factor that goes into trying to control the environment, it changes your matrix of risk.

Joseph:

Okay so now if I build offsite which, literally, as we're sitting here right now, in New Holland, pennsylvania, at ModLogic, the building's being built Sure. So now I've taken my risk factor of weather and incidences happening on the campus with construction workers.

Joseph:

Okay, my general conditions is a lot less because I don't have the job trailers there and you know the superintendent and the foreman and all that stuff. So overall cost is cheaper. Okay, the overall quality is much higher because, as Mr Allen just said, it's being built in a controlled environment. So when you add those factors together, even with transportation costs and everything else, it's cheaper and higher quality.

Gail:

So is this your first off-site construction project or have you built other parts of your campus off-site construction?

Joseph:

As full-blown off-site construction. This is our first Okay, tilt-up wall systems, which is very common in construction, which, you see, was kind of my taste. It's like, oh try this Wait a minute.

Joseph:

This just essentially. The wall system came up really quick, so we were under frame very quickly, yes, but now to be able to expand that to, as you know, drywall flooring, electrical life safety, all those elements are in and then you can just literally deliver it. I've reduced my risk on the campus dramatically. And then also, the other thing is, with all construction sites at schools there's never enough parking right. Yeah, so, if.

Joseph:

I've taken a project that maybe was 12 or 18 months and I can literally impact the campus for six months. That's 12 months of additional parking and less risk, and that's what we've done with this project.

Gail:

Chris, I'm going to come back to you. Offsite construction is being used for this school project. What other uses of offsite construction or modular buildings do we see in the county?

Chris:

So throughout the county we see modular construction in a variety. So we see it in educational uses, in this case, where you're adding on to an existing building, or sometimes where it is a standalone building. We see it in business offices temporary business offices.

Chris:

We see it in single family homes a lot you know much like Joe was talking about. You can literally go to a catalog and you can pick out what units you want for the living room and the bedrooms and then they come out and build the Legos and the process is a lot simpler at that point. So we see that for residential there are also some innovative products out there of doing high-rise or multifamily because there are benefits of doing that. So the use of these buildings is really limitless. Just making sure that, going through the state approval process and the county approval process, that things are constructed for the proposed use. You don't want to take an office trailer and make it into a school. Mr Phelan's talking about buying something that was specifically intended to be used in a school setting. So it's part of that design.

Joseph:

So that brings up a really good point. So, back, a lot of times, when people think of modular construction, it is that old catalog design, right, right, so we've taken it. The next step, which is the building is designed specifically for us. It's not the catalog, it's like what do we need? So you know, we talk a lot of times about schematic design. So the issue is how many offices do we need? What's the ebb, what's the flow?

Joseph:

In our particular case, which is fascinating, the building is from the 1830s, think about that. So it's an old farmhouse, the old Claggett farmhouse. Now we're taking this modern construction, which was literally designed from the ground up, not from a catalog, from the ground up to meet the design intent of an old farmhouse from the 1830s, okay, but have all the modern amenities such as heating, air conditioning, life safety, right, and, once again, totally custom. There's some challenges with that and it's making sure that you have, like, a really good architectural firm. Okay, that understands, because, let's be real, designing for offsite construction is actually different than building stick building design, right. So we're fortunate we work with an architectural firm, dci Architecture, which, quite honestly, it's been a learning experience for both of us to go seeing that more and more Great reference of the hotel.

Joseph:

There was a hotel that was in Manhattan, 20 stories, and it was built, designed and built in the United States, built in Poland, yes, and they shipped it right into the New York Harbor 37 days. They stacked 180 of let's just call it the modular units or offsite units, but it was custom for that design of the hotel. So as we think about costs and anything it's interesting in that model, a lot of times they'll put the furniture in there, the bedding in there, all right there, because think about it, if I'm in Manhattan, what's the effort it takes to put in 400 beds Right? So if they do that off-site and then are just swinging it in place, they've just saved a lot of money between permits and closing roads down and everything else. So the benefits are just becoming greater and greater as you start to break these models down.

Gail:

What's the status of your project today? Are you finished? Are you close to being finished? Are you ready to have kids go in these buildings?

Joseph:

So the building itself is an administrative building, okay, and I'm happy to say that we just received our green light from Montgomery County with our pre-construction with Mr Scott Brister, okay, and so we're in the deconstruction phase of it. But that's the interesting. That's on-site. So what's happening off-site? So the off-site it's coming along nicely Okay, and I'll be more than happy to share some photos of that. I mean a nano wall, which is a collapsible wall with glass. 18 feet it's installed. So just imagine they're going to have to transport that. All the windows are going to be installed, drywalls installed, plumbing's installed, wet walls are installed, toilets are installed. So they build this and then they got to literally break it down and then deliver it, put it all back together.

Gail:

When do you expect your project to be completed?

Joseph:

We're hoping early, probably right around October 1st, okay, so once again, the neat thing is I don't have any weather delays right now. Right, because, if you remember, this is the sixth coldest winter in the last, I think, 100 years. Don't quote me on that. But I have no delays because everything's being built in a controlled environment, so the quality control is much higher.

Gail:

Well, that brings me to my question for Chris, because we always have to ask this question in DPS what's the quality of these buildings? Do they meet codes? Are they expected to meet codes? What does DPS look at?

Chris:

Absolutely so. The buildings are designed and built to the Maryland building performance standards.

Gail:

Okay.

Chris:

So as a part of that process, when a customer chooses the modular offsite construction method, oftentimes that modular is already approved by the state of Maryland. There are ways to have others approve. So they have a list of approved modular units and having those designs approved, so they're already built or designed to a code-compliant method. The state of Maryland, through the construction process that Mr Phelan is talking about, they have what are called Maryland approved testing facilities. So those are authorized inspectors where the state will send inspectors to these offsite locations in different states doing QA and quality assurance inspections as they're going forward, inspections as they're going forward. Ultimately at the end, before the, before those products leave that manufacturer and head to montgomery county, they're going to have a sticker uh, that's going to be on those units themselves. That's going to be the approval from the state of maryland says that module, the unit, is approved per the state building codes.

Chris:

And then what we look at here in montgomery county is we look to make sure that when they are installed and bolted together and everything there, that everything functions correct. Okay, you know, once you bolt these together we want to make sure that all the electrical, the emergency life safety systems make sure all those are interconnected. So, from the inspection standpoint, our number of trips to a job site is significantly reduced because we're relying upon those state approved inspections. Trips to a job site is significantly reduced because we're relying upon those state-approved inspections. So we have a lot of the inspections. We go out dozens of times to jobs like this. We'll go out a handful of times instead of dozens.

Gail:

Okay, so it meets the requirements for DPS. It meets the requirements for the client in that it saves you time and money. The requirements for the client in that it saves you time and money. What are the drawbacks? Is there a con to this kind of building or this kind of construction?

Joseph:

Nope, not that I've seen.

Gail:

Okay, we can't come up with one.

Joseph:

So the one thing I want to say, that's interesting because these units are being transported typically, the structural elements of them is much greater. Yeah, right, okay, because if you start thinking, about deflection.

Gail:

It's got to survive a trip from Pennsylvania.

Joseph:

It's got to survive a trip from Pennsylvania.

Gail:

Right.

Joseph:

And no potholes between here and there you know, but the the amount of deflection has to be almost nominal because, think about it, there's glass in there, there's drywall in there, right?

Joseph:

So what ends up happening is you're essentially building a superstructure versus just a wooden stick built building that, quite honestly, if you drove down the road, probably isn't going to withstand the the trip. So it's amazing when you take a look at all the extra structural elements in order to meet that. Now, the one thing that I will say that is probably the most important thing that we did at montgomery county was to involve montgomery County literally as soon as we started scratching our heads on this idea, because, at the end of the day, I don't know of another project in county where it's an old farmhouse that's taking modern construction, marrying it up to this old farmhouse. So then it just starts through this like whole tire regulatory thing, like, oh my God, this is off site, this is on site, life safety is on site. What's Montgomery County's perception of? You know these modular industrialized building systems? You know what I mean. So, if anything, it was the marriage between DCI architecture St Andrews, which you know.

Joseph:

I'm very fortunate that we try being innovative, we try doing different things and having the foresight to be able to do that, and then marrying up with people at DPS because, honestly, there was some people that were like, ok, that's different, ok, yeah, nope, that makes sense. And then it just really became this labyrinth of how do we get through this.

Joseph:

And without that partnership, if I would have just submitted the blueprints, I think we would have hit the stone wall and so you know, mr Allen and some others were on many, many pre-designed phone calls because you guys came back with a lot of different questions for us and we wanted to make sure that we were answering them through the design process up front.

Gail:

And that has been a commercial for our pre-design consultations.

Joseph:

I didn't mean it that way.

Gail:

Thank you. That's one of the things that we encourage anybody starting a project, and certainly a major project like this. We try to encourage a pre-design consultation so we can marry up your design team with your contractors, with our staff.

Joseph:

And honestly, that relationship has been absolutely fantastic because you know, I've been fortunate enough to work with DPS for literally almost 20 years now and on the old days of submitting blueprints physically and coming over and pulling out the revisions and stapling them in, and so I've been around the block for a long time with construction and having people that you can go to versus just an email is all the difference in finding success on a construction project, absolutely. So that's where I think the pre-construction process is really critical.

Gail:

Chris, if our listeners are interested in trying this or investigating whether off-site construction would work for them, how do you suggest they get started?

Chris:

So there are two main avenues. Joe made a great point about the pre-design consultations. That's always something we recommend, especially in a complex project. Two main avenues Joe made a great point about the, the pre-design consultations, that that's always something we recommend. It's especially in a complex project whether it be a new construction, additions with modular always start with the pre-construction meeting. That way we can get introduced to the project. We know where, where you are as an owner, as a contractor and and a lot of times, like Joe said, it's an exploration of you know the built environment is always changing in Montgomery.

Chris:

County and throughout the state and there's always new products and we're interested in always to learn what those new things are and how we can implement those. So a lot of times for us as building officials, it's to educate ourselves so that we are up to date on these things. The second kind of person you want to contact is the Maryland Department of Labor the Building. Codes.

Chris:

Administration so they are the organization that regulate the statewide building codes. They also handle the modular industrialized building process. So when a manufacturer wants to produce a modular unit, they go through their process and that gets into the inspections that I mentioned earlier, the off-site inspection. So okay it is a combination of of going through the state permitting and approval process and then coming through dps because, at the end of the day, uh, the that unit is going to reside here in montgomery county so the building permit through us is to make sure that the end installation, the use of that, is going to be safe for our residents, students, business owners and everybody that would use that building.

Gail:

So we're talking about modular building. What's the difference between modular building and mobile homes, or mobile building, if I can say it that way? A mobile building and a modular one.

Chris:

So a common misconception of offsite construction is some people think that modular and mobile are the same thing. Okay, so modular homes or modular construction in any capacity are things that are built to the Maryland building performance standard. So they're used to Maryland building codes. They're installed to the Montgomery County code. When they're installed here in Montgomery County or any other jurisdiction, a mobile home is built to federal HUD standards. So there are slightly different construction standards there. The main difference of those is permanency. Usually the mobile homes and modulars can sometimes be transported on permanent chassis. The difference is once it's there, is it going to stay there?

Chris:

So a mobile home has the ability to move that from one property to another. We're typically modular, you set it to one time and it's there forever, or as a building can be there forever. So that is the main difference. It's the end use. Is it permanent? Is it not? Is it movable, is it not? So modular is not necessarily movable.

Joseph:

It's literally tied into a foundation system. So a foundation is literally designed for that, which makes it really different, because it's permanency, like you said.

Gail:

Chris, what is DPS's role in these buildings if they're third-party inspections that are done or off-site inspections that are done? What's dps's role once someone decides they want to build like this?

Chris:

so from from an inspection standpoint? Uh, there there's two kind of two main phases to this. There's the first part of the phase, the foundation. So the whether it be a concrete or a block wall foundation, there's got to be something to set the building on. Okay, so that gets built, either Montgomery County will inspect it or we'll have an authorized third-party inspector do that. So then once the units arrive and are interconnected, then we typically go right into the final inspection stage. So that's where our building inspectors, electrical fire inspectors will all go out to make sure that the end use installation is there.

Chris:

Uh, if, as an example, the in modular construction the walls already have the wiring behind the drywall okay uh, the plugs are there, so someone has to go and make that final connection of the power from the modular unit to what comes from the utility. Okay, the same would come for wsscSC. They make their final connection. And from our building and fire inspectors, we make sure that the life safety systems are working properly. Is it required to be a sprinkler building or a fire alarm building, which not all buildings are? Do we have our exit signs, emergency lights? Do things function like they should?

Gail:

So, at the end of the day, the hope is it's going to operate like any other building that we so an applicant still needs trade permits, they need electrical, mechanical, plumbing permits and they need our fire and life safety permits.

Chris:

Absolutely. I can't emphasize enough trade permits. I think a lot of owners that I've dealt with in the past will focus on the buildings here. We're good to go but there are those other steps that can integrate.

Chris:

You want to make sure you're electrical, you're plumbing and if you are required to have a fire alarm system. I know you mentioned that this is going to be used as offices, but if it was going to be used as classrooms, it would be required to have a fire alarm system, and that's something that we want to make sure that the fire alarm system operates, that it rings out to the fire department. So we want to make sure that all that integrates properly.

Gail:

Okay, joe, I'm going to come back to you one more time. Is this how you're going to build in the future? Is this how you build if you need to expand St Andrews a little more?

Joseph:

I would say at this point absolutely, because once again we're reducing our impact to our overall community between parking, faculty staff and student safety, and we can actually reduce our impact on the campus significantly just essentially preparing the foundation and installing the building.

Gail:

Okay, Joe. We always ask our guests on the podcast to leave our listeners with three tips or three lessons learned about their project. Give us three pieces of wise input about doing offsite construction.

Joseph:

Definitely pre-designed consultation. Okay To try working with a architect that quite honestly understands offsite.

Gail:

Okay.

Joseph:

You know, for both of us DCI they've done an amazing job of putting so many resources into learning offsite, because it really is different you gotta remember, you still gotta tear it apart, right?

Joseph:

um? And then I would say number three is um, quite honestly, make sure that you work with your stakeholders to make sure that you are getting their expectations met, because a lot of times, people design buildings in a bubble and you know, when you start thinking about offsite construction, when is it going to be delivered, what is it going to look like, how is it going to feel, right? So those three things are, you know, really critical. The one last thing that I would love to say about that is when you see the, the aha moment, okay, okay, and we get the aha moment of and I was talking to you before it's like sod.

Joseph:

Right now, people see this old building and you know it's. It's all of a sudden they're going to go away for for summer and literally within 48 hours, a 3000 square foot addition will be put on place, will be connected to the building, okay, and they're gonna be like wait a minute, I just went away for the weekend and now this is here. So when you can do that for your community and and have that type of impact, that's something that you always want to focus on, because you've created a safer, better environment for them.

Gail:

Chris, joe, gentlemen, thank you for joining us on the podcast today. Appreciate you being here. Remember we are here to help you our customers succeed. It's important to know when to get a permit and why you need a permit. If you have questions about the permitting process, you can reach out to our customer support team by dialing 311 if you're in Montgomery County or 240-777-0311 if you're out of Montgomery County. You can also come to our office at 2425 Reedy Drive. We're on the seventh floor and we're open Monday through Friday, 7 30 AM to 4 o'clock PM. We have folks in-house. We have folks in person that can assist you and help you with your project and answer any questions that you may have.

Gail:

Again, gentlemen, thank you for joining us on the podcast today and thank you, listeners, for tuning in. Please check out Montgomery County Department of Permitting Services website at montgomerycountymdgov forward slash dps to find information and resources to help you with your next project. If you found this podcast helpful, please subscribe and share it with your friends and with your family. Make sure you always get our latest episode. If you have a question or a comment you'd like to see, or a suggestion for a topic for one of our podcasts, please reach out to DPS at dpspodcast at montgomerycountymdgov. Thank you for joining us today and remember DPS is your project partner.

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