Construction on the Welcome Home Village project is ramping up, and on Friday, four of the 3D-printed homes that will be on the property were delivered.
The "Welcome Home Village" project is designed to provide housing to the homeless living in and around the Bob Jones Trail in San Luis Obispo.
"We officially really broke ground in August, and we've just been moving ever since," said Margaret Shepard-Moore, the project manager for the village. "So you'll see behind us right now, they've been putting in utilities, so the gas lines, water lines, electrical, everything's been going in underground getting ready for the units."
The units will be 3D-printed homes from a company based out of Gardena.
"Units are being printed down there and the factory is running out of space," Shepard-Moore said. "And then once the ground screws go in, we'll be ready to just put them on, weld them into place."
"Takes about three weeks to complete. Each one. So we have 40 of those in total, and 14 of the smaller units," said Ross Maguire, the CEO of Azure Printed Homes. "So, yeah, we're, we've been in fabrication for the last month or so and will continue to be for the next, a month-and-a-half, that module cost tends to range between kind of $200 to $250 a square-foot."
One business owner in Big Sur has lived in a 3D home constructed by Azure.
"They really are comfortable, and on the inside, they figured out how to make them easy to clean up, which makes it really good for us," said John Handy, the owner of Tree Bones Resort.
The one on his property is a little different to the ones that will be at the Welcome Home Village, but is made of the same materials.
"Sixty percent of their materials are durable recycled plastic, so our project is keeping about 6 million water bottles out of landfills," Shepard-Moore said.
She says the total cost of the Welcome Home Village comes out to $10.5 million, which is paid for by a California grant.
Right now, an outreach program is looking at potential homeless people that could move at no cost once it opens.
"For the 54 units, all the ancillary buildings, everything, the fencing, everything that is contained in this project and this site as well as, we've had to do some work on the sewer extension and some other things that come with construction," Shepard-Moore said.
She adds that with the current timeline, the project should be complete and ready for move-in in March of next year.
