Rebuild Cleveland Set to Build Modular Homes in Detroit Shoreway, North Collinwood

More modular homes are coming to the east and west sides Credit: Courtesy rendering

A typical house takes about five months to build. Yet for Cleveland developer Seth Task, the process takes about five hours.

That’s because Task is building modular homes in Cleveland – that is, homes that have been built mostly off site in a factory, and arrive in pieces waiting to be put together, much like a set of Legos.

Last year, Task and his business partners built a modular home on Colgate Avenue in the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood. After being built in the factory, which took several months, it was assembled on site in a single day. They ended up selling it for $300,000.

Now, the entrepreneurs have set their sights on their next project. Their company Rebuild Cleveland, which Task co-leads along with business partners Chris Grimaldi and Ilya Palatnik, is set to break ground on five additional single-family homes on scattered lots throughout the Detroit Shoreway and North Collinwood neighborhoods. They’re also building a six-unit townhome building in North Collinwood.

“Modular is awesome,” said Task, a former restaurateur who found a second career in real estate. “I can’t tell you how much new construction I’ve shown or sold in my career, where I got into a house and it’s raining inside. Water is not great for a structure, right? And then there’s the sustainability factor. When you’re building conventionally, you’ve got drywall, you’ve got cabinets, you’ve got lumber, you’ve got roofing material, you’ve got all these things coming in from different trucks, delivery after delivery. Here, it’s one delivery. That’s it.”

Task, a realtor with Berkshire Hathaway who has served as president of the Akron Cleveland Association of Realtors (ACAR), said he’s developing the houses not only to make a profit but also because he wants to help bring back Cleveland. “What I’m trying to do is bring homeowners into the city with new construction,” he said.

The entrepreneur said he’s bullish on prefab new construction not only because of the house the group sold on Colgate Avenue, which won an award from the Homebuilders Association of Greater Cleveland for best new home under 2,500 square feet, but also because there’s a shortage of new homes in Cleveland and nationally. Because of the slow pace of new construction in the wake of the 2008-2009 recession, along with the emergence of the large Millennial and Gen Z generations as homebuyers, Task said the nation is short about five million houses.

“We were looking at a generation that saw their parents, aunts, uncles, and friends lose their houses to short sale or foreclosure and they didn’t believe in real estate,” said Task of the Generation Z and Millennial generations. “The average age of a first time homebuyer is now 36 years old. It was 27 when I first got into real estate.”

Now, the situation has changed and Millennial and Gen Z buyers are buying houses, but this demand coupled with a lack of supply is fueling the current housing affordability crisis. Additionally, many older homeowners who have low interest rates on their current mortgages are holding onto their houses, further exacerbating the lack of inventory problem. Rebuild Cleveland aims to solve this particular challenge by building affordably-priced modular homes.

The problem, of course, is that it costs more to build modular homes on vacant lots in the city of Cleveland than most buyers are willing or able to pay. Additionally, Rebuild Cleveland is building in neighborhoods where new construction is not yet a proven product. To solve this problem, Rebuild Cleveland recently secured gap funding from the city of Cleveland – in the form of a $50,000 forgivable loan for each new home they build – that will help them build a total of 11 new homes in the Detroit Shoreway and North Collinwood neighborhoods.

Task said they’re building one newly-designed 1500 square foot ranch home on Westropp Avenue priced at $344,900 and two 900 square foot ranches on Westropp and Lucknow Avenue in the North Collinwood neighborhood that will be priced around $275,000. They’re also building two new ranch homes on Colgate Avenue in Detroit Shoreway that will be priced around $275,000. Next up, the group is planning to break ground on six attached townhomes in North Collinwood, a project called Arcade Place. These units will be priced under $300,000.

Although it’s not cheaper to build modular, Task hopes that by building in bulk, the cost will go down. “It can be cheaper when you talk about scale, right?” he said. “If I’m going to do an entire subdivision, it could be cheaper depending on how vertical you go.”

Nonetheless, he insisted, “You don’t do modular because it’s cheaper. You do it because it’s a better finished product.”

Task said Rebuild Cleveland, which was announced with fanfare a couple of years ago, is helping to put modular homes on the map in Cleveland. Recently, the city of Cleveland announced a request for proposals to build a new modular home construction facility on the east side.

The city’s request for proposals aims to attract a modular home builder to come to Cleveland to tackle the current housing shortage. “By attracting a modular home manufacturer to our city, we’re not just creating jobs—we’re creating a sustainable solution to provide quality, affordable housing for our residents,” Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb said in a statement. Referring to the city’s Site Readiness Fund, which provides financial incentives, he added: “The comprehensive incentive package we’ve assembled together with other actions to support increased home-building demonstrates our commitment to making this vision a reality.”

Across the city, it appears interest in modular homes is on the rise. In fact, Rebuild Cleveland isn’t the only group working on building modular homes in Cleveland. Habitat for Humanity of Greater Cleveland was set to build 19 new modular homes last year in Collinwood and Detroit Shoreway.

Task said 2025 could the year for modular housing in Cleveland, and he believes his company is at the forefront. “It took us a while to get going, but we’re about to take off,” he said.

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