Home Building Technology, Part XVIII: Planned Communities and Off-site Construction

Issue #18325 - August 2026 | Page #10

By Joe Kannapell

On my way to the component plants that supply The Villages, the most well-known planned community in Florida, I drove through the vastly expanding reaches of America’s last remaining bastion of true production building. When I entered the new 424-acre Governor Rick Scott Industrial Park, I encountered an off-site construction complex like none other that assembles the walls and the roofs for this massive development. As I contemplated the huge scale of The Villages’ investment in this complex, I wondered if this would go the way of other captive component plants, like Hovnanian’s more modest facility that built several thousand houses along the New Jersey shore and then closed after it exhausted the land supply. But, I soon learned that The Villages still has 25,000 acres available for future expansion, dwarfing the total size of its most celebrated predecessor communities, and it possesses many more advantages.

The most critical driver of home building efficiency is the ability to progress street-by-street at a steady and continuous pace. While this worked well when huge tracts of land were available in the past, they were never large enough to sustain more than five years of steady growth. For example, after William Levitt filled out each of his three Levittowns, he was unable to find large enough tracts in high growth areas. Likewise, after Del Webb filled out his 25 square miles of desert in his original Sun City near Phoenix, he had to begin anew in Sun City West where he was only able to acquire 12 square miles of land. By contrast, The Villages has developed only about 65% of the 57 square miles of land under its ownership.

Equally important to sustain large developments is a steady, sustainable influx of qualified buyers. While Levitt capitalized initially on the large influx of returning World War II servicemen, by the time he opened his final development in New Jersey in 1958, that supply had largely diminished, and Levitt was unable to find other suitable opportunities elsewhere. By contrast, the four Sun City communities around Phoenix have enjoyed a continuous inflow of about 50,000 new residents annually for over 60 years. However, The Villages has benefitted from the inflow of about 200,000 new residents annually to Florida. Also critically important is that at least 60% of incoming residents to Florida are able to buy a home in their first year.

Also contributing to the growth of The Villages is the wide appeal of its offerings, and the variety of building methods it has tried. Fortunately, roof trusses have always been a staple of its residential structures, while its numerous new commercial complexes often feature conventional steel and concrete construction. Residential wall construction has evolved from concrete block to poured-in-place to precast concrete walls and also to wood framed walls. The Villages remains the largest proving grounds for residential construction technology.

The Villages’ breakneck pace of on-site construction is supported by one of the largest off-site construction complexes housed in a new, first class, rail-served industrial park. Driving into the complex, I first encountered the precast wall plant and the large number of adjacent storage racks, some of which were loaded with panels stored vertically, back-to-back. Since this structure was one of the first constructed in this complex, and since precast panels can replace both concrete block and wood panels, it is worth knowing more about them.

The Villages’ precast plant harnesses the best German technology that is widely used in most of the world that eschews use of wood framed walls. The panels are fabricated on a highly automated line in modular lengths, approximating the lengths of typical wood-framed panels. After curing for at least 24 hours, finished panels are raised vertically and placed in steel racks designed to fit the bed of low-boy flatbed trailers for transport to jobsites. Precast panels contain insulation and are mainly used in repetitive, rectangular floorplans of courtyard and veranda homes that gain increased curb appeal by varying roof truss designs.

Beyond the precast plant is an even larger and more impressive sloped-steel structure housing the wood wall panel plant, containing three exterior and four interior conventional Panels Plus lines fed by Hornet II saws. In addition to supplying fully panelized homes, this facility builds all the interior panels for the precast units, providing increased flexibility for their interior spaces. Since this is a captive facility, The Villages’ designers have optimized the design of header and junction configurations.

At the end of the industrial park is the impressive truss plant, which had its “board cutting” ceremony shown in the photo on May 7, 2025, featuring $25 Million of truss equipment, including four MiTek Wizard lines fed by Blade II saws. [For photo, See PDF or View in Full Issue.] The panel and truss plants are part of RoMac Building Supply, which is a family owned and operated company independent of The Villages’ development and ownership. This entire complex operates at the same or higher level of efficiency as the new BFS plant north of Houston and the new Sunpro plant in St. George, Utah. Along with its adjacent wall panel plant, the RoMac complex rivals the twin plants of Automated Products, now part of US LBM, in central Wisconsin.

Each of these plants benefits by supplying prosperous housing markets, and together they portend a great future for the component industry. However, this RoMac facility, fueled by the relentless pace of The Villages, will likely maintain the highest capacity utilization, thereby providing one of the highest returns on investment.