4 Federal Agencies Invest $4M in ADL & Key Partners to Advance Industrialized Construction
ADL has long articulated the potential of Industrialized Construction (IC) to revolutionize the U.S. construction sector. Industrialized Construction, an advanced manufacturing-centric approach to building buildings, could reverse the construction sector’s declining productivity, satisfy missing middle housing & building supply, bring sustainable employment opportunities to disadvantaged communities, and could help address the sector’s massive impact on climate change. ADL has developed a three-part thesis as to how to develop this revolutionary industry at scale, and we’re very excited to celebrate four key awards at the end of 2023 that will enable ADL and its partners to progress innovation across all three parts, and which will help to develop a thriving Industrialized Construction sector in the United States.
ADL was founded to commercialize innovations in three critical sectors – energy, transportation and construction – that are cornerstones of our economy and which must learn to innovate for the sustainability of our communities and climate. Amidst that work, ADL has developed an Industrialized Construction thesis centered around three principle elements that need to come together to establish a sustainable and thriving IC sector:
a transition from a project-by-project approach to construction, in which every building is designed and built from scratch, to an advanced manufacturing-centric model in which repeatable building components are designed and built like products
the aggregation of real estate demand to support the factory-built model
and the modernization of prefab manufacturing capacity, including new factory buildouts and workforce development.
Four grants recently awarded to ADL and its partners by the Department of Energy (DOE), Economic Development Agency (EDA), Housing & Urban Development (HUD), and Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), will allow us to build momentum across all three pillars of our thesis. These four grants, awarded by separate agencies with distinct missions, signal a high degree of confidence in ADL’s multifaceted approach to transforming the construction sector.
“The success our team has had this year securing awards that support our Industrialized Construction thesis has been absolutely thrilling,” said ADL’s founder, Nolan Browne. “We are excited to be aligned with an incredible group of partners and innovators who are all working together to realize the opportunity Industrialized Construction presents to address construction’s climate impact, satisfy unmet building & housing needs, and bring economic opportunity to communities across America.”
ADL wins $700,000 to scale up its construction accelerator, The Deployment Engine
ADL‘s growth-stage construction accelerator – The Deployment Engine (TDE) – was awarded the grand finalist EPIC Prove It! Prize, a competition hosted by the Department of Energy Office of Technology Transitions. This is the third award for our accelerator, which has garnered $700K in funds. TDE will build an building an entrepreneurial ecosystem focused on hard-tech start-ups. TDE is unique as its primary goal is to help start-ups land their first customers versus traditional accelerator programs focusing on pitching investors.
TDE is in conversations with West Virginia’s Marshall University, a pillar institution in Appalachia, to house TDE at Marshall’s Innovation Center. TDE will underpin regional economic development efforts to bring new investment and industry. Appalachia was the birthplace of the first industrial revolution (coal, steel, textiles), and with the powerful collaboration between ADL Ventures and Marshall, we intend to spark a second industrial revolution within the construction sector.
ADL wins $450,000 to lead North Carolina Tech Hub consortium for Industrialized Construction
The U.S. Dept. of Commerce Economic Development Administration recently awarded the Western North Carolina Industrialized Construction Tech Hub, a consortium led by ADL, with a $450,000 planning grant. The grant will fund the development of a $50-70M proposal to set up an Industrialized Construction ecosystem serving regional affordable housing needs. This initiative seeks to reinvigorate the economy of North Carolina’s Burke and Catawba counties, a former global furniture manufacturing hub with excellent manufacturing infrastructure and know-how, and transform the regional construction industry.
ADL & Univ. of Texas win $2.5M to study and deploy equitable IC housing innovation
ADL is the lead partner for The Equitable Technologies for Housing Innovation Center (ETHIC) at the University of Texas at Austin (UT), which was recently awarded $2.5M by the Department of Housing and Urban Development to understand the spatial patterns affecting housing inequity in Texas, create targeted programs to boost the adoption of Industrialized Construction for affordable housing and address climate change impacts on housing through more sustainable construction practices. ADL will develop a values-based integrated building system (VIBS) for affordable housing. ADL will also strategize how to develop an Industrialized Construction (IC) sector in the state by leveraging the other initiatives described here.
ADL & Virginia Tech win $450,000 to develop an IC-focused Appalachia workforce
Finally, ADL is part of a consortium led by Virginia Tech that was recently awarded a planning grant by the Appalachian Regional Commission as part of their Appalachian Regional Initiative for Stronger Economies (ARISE) program. ARISE is a workforce development initiative to diversify, grow, and sustain Central Appalachia’s construction economy. The consortium will develop a comprehensive plan for investing $10M in implementation funding to train a new Appalachian workforce that provides construction opportunities for everyone, from local high school graduates to post-doctoral fellows, and which takes advantage of the opportunities provided by an Industrialized Construction future.
If you are interested in partnering with ADL on any of the above projects, or are a construction player interested in discovering how to revolutionize your business for an Industrialized Construction future, we’d love to hear from you.