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For affordable housing projects, which rely heavily on public funding, efficiency is essential.

With that in mind, nonprofit developer REACH Community Development Corp. decided to make its so-called Wy’east Plaza, in Southeast Portland, a pilot project. Ankrom Moisan Architects and general contractor Walsh Construction drew up high-efficiency concepts for the four-story, 175-unit development.

鈥淭hey wanted to do a large-scale project and they wanted to test out some ideas to see if that would move the meter,鈥� said Mike Steffen, director of innovation with Walsh Construction.

Ground was broken in July 2019 on a 1.37-acre former parking lot at the corner of Southeast 124th Avenue and Ash Street. The team, on a single-minded mission to cost reduction, is scheduled to finish in July.

For instance, 鈥渁dvanced鈥� framing is being used throughout the building. This entails using 24-inch, on-center spacing of wall studs, single headers, single top plates and other tactics to reduce the amount of lumber needed.

鈥淵ou won’t walk in there and see eight studs next to each other,鈥� Steffen said.

Every project starts with constraints anyway, added Michael Bonn, project manager for Ankrom Moisan Architects.

鈥淚n this case (cost) was one of the constraints,鈥� he said. 鈥淗ow do we work around a sheet of plywood or a sheet of (gypsum board)? How do we minimize cutting and waste and speed up construction schedules? That was just the constraint we started with, and we tried to solve the problem.鈥�

One of the biggest efficiencies is the use of only three floor plans for units 鈥� one each for studios, one-bedroom units and two-bedroom units. Further, each floor plan is designed around the same two-foot modules used by most materials manufacturers. This allows for less waste and faster construction.

鈥淥ne of the interesting things was the kitchen, dining and living room take up a side of each apartment,鈥� Bonn said. 鈥淭hat leaves the other side for bed, bath and closet. And it allowed us to make a larger closet than we might have had because of the leftover space between the bathroom and the bedroom.鈥�

The resulting walk-in closets are unusual for apartments smaller than 600 square feet on average.

鈥淗aving that extra storage space is kind of unheard of,鈥� said Tania Feliciano, an Ankrom Moisan associate. 鈥淚t was exciting to see that we could get that in a compact-sized apartment; you’re not losing space to circulation.鈥�

Additionally, ceilings will be 8 feet instead of 9 feet. This further reduced the amount of materials needed and shortened the building by four feet. Plus, drywall installers won’t need to cut sheets.

With narrower units, interior corridors became shorter and the amount of building skin was reduced. Residences will still be suitable, Steffen said.

鈥淲e actually undertook a pretty lengthy process where we rethought the unit plans to simplify them and make them every bit as functional and livable as any other project,鈥� he added.

Even the property is relatively ideal, according to Steffen.

鈥淭his is an awesome site,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t was flat and there were no buildings or nasties in the ground. I call it an unencumbered site, and you don’t find those in Portland anymore.鈥�

In combination with Lean construction methods that led to an efficient and integrated planning process involving earlier-than-usual input from subcontractors, each unit’s cost will be slightly more than $111,000. That is lower than for virtually any Portland-area affordable housing project built over the past three-plus years or now under construction.

鈥淲e kind of dug into Lean a bit and had a Lean consultant,鈥� said Jay Nees, a Walsh Construction senior project manager. 鈥淭he idea in construction is to lessen the distance 鈥� you kind of batch things. It keeps everybody moving and it’s a very collaborative process. It’s not a big start, stop and react, go back; it’s less siloed.鈥�

Jason Roberts, managing design principal with Ankrom Moisan Architects, also is a fan of this process.

鈥淚 love the guys who build the building actually being in the room,鈥� he said. 鈥淭here are so many times I’ve been on a jobsite in construction and if you have a chance to talk to a sub they’ll readily (ask) you, 鈥榃hy would you design it this way?’ So we got with them at the beginning and gave them the chance to be the designer.鈥�

One tangible result is a huge drop in requests for information.

鈥淲e went through this process with each of them, and we are eight months in now and we have 31 RFIs,鈥� Roberts said. 鈥淎fter eight months that is kind of remarkable.鈥�

Walsh Construction applied some of its efficiency techniques to a 24-unit affordable housing project it completed in Oregon City last year. Another Lean construction concept, target value design, was used as well. That meant modeling the project prior to design.

鈥淲e modeled different unit mixes inside of that building form so they could model it financially,鈥� Steffen said. 鈥淎nd coming out of that process we were able to put a target cost budget together for their pro forma and that was actually the budget for the project. It was a really aggressive budget.鈥�

The final construction budget of $19.5 million helped the project come in roughly 39 percent under the state cost limit on a per-unit basis. That exceeded the project goal by 9 percent.

鈥淲e got the cost benefit out of it that you saw in those numbers, but we’re pretty certain we can take it further,鈥� Steffen said.