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Prefabricated home rolls into Fairfield
Southeast Iowa Union offers audio versions of articles using Instaread. Some words may be mispronounced.
FAIRFIELD – A prefabricated home rolled into Fairfield Tuesday morning, May 27, having made the 96-mile journey from Newton.
The home measures 24 by 50 feet, and its large size forced the temporary closure of roads on its route, which led to its new home at 700 South Seventh Street. The Iowa State Patrol escorted the home, which was on a trailer made specifically for moving houses, with a hydraulic lift that raises it onto its foundation. A crew followed the house as it lumbered through town, moving cables and sometimes having to uproot road signs to make space for its wide turns.
Grow Fairfield purchased the home from Iowa Prison Industries through its Homes for Iowa program. Homes are nearly completely finished at the Newton Correctional Facility with only a few exceptions such as the flooring and utility hook-ups. Grow Fairfield’s Executive Director Ed Malloy said more than 300 inmates at the minimum security prison help build these homes, and they make as many as 40 per year.
“We had a small group visit the facility a few months ago, and we were impressed with the workmanship and the name brands used,” Malloy said.
Malloy said Grow Fairfield is attempting to tackle a housing shortage in town, and one part of that approach is in-fill housing, building on vacant lots. This home is the first of two prefabricated homes that Grow Fairfield has purchased from Iowa Prison Industries and will be selling this year. The other location where a home will be moved to is 504 South Sixth Street, which was previously occupied by a dilapidated home that the homeowner gave to the City of Fairfield. Malloy said the house for Sixth Street is expected to arrive in July.
The prefabricated homes are not just a cost-savings, Malloy said, but also a time-savings, since this home on Seventh Street was ordered in January and was ready for installation in just 4.5 months. Malloy said that the Homes for Iowa program requires buyers to qualify based on income, though he added that a dual-earning household could make as much as $125,000 per year and still qualify.
Now that the house on Seventh Street is in place, Malloy said their plan is to add a two-car garage, driveway, walkway and stairs to the home, plus the remaining work inside the house connecting the electricity, water, sewer and gas. Once all these additional costs have been paid for, Grow Fairfield will be ready to put the house on the market.
Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com
