Steve Felmmyer pitches factory-built starter homes and RHID partnership for Goodland

Steve Felmmyer, a retired CFO who leads a modular-housing initiative, told Goodland officials and residents that factory-built starter homes and a public-private partnership using the town's Rural Housing Investment District (RHID) could produce lower-cost single-family houses for local buyers.

Felmmyer said his team has studied affordable housing supply gaps and that, in Wichita and across Kansas, market forces and rising construction costs have pushed many builders out of the starter-home market. "There's probably 25,000 homes needed today" in Wichita, he said. He described two federal programs — Section 8 vouchers and the Section 42 tax-credit program — as part of the current safety net but argued the market needs additional, lower-cost supply.

Felmmyer presented the modular approach as a cost-reduction strategy. He said factory construction reduces subcontractor markups and material waste, lowers labor hours and shortens build time from many months to roughly a month. "We can build for about $100 a square foot less than what you can build for if you're stick building," he said.

Project and financing details

Felmmyer said his group raised about $15 million to start remodeling and affordable-housing efforts and has invested in a factory operation. He described a pilot starter-home project in Valley Center, Kansas, with 30 lots and said comparable stick-built homes priced at $275,000–$300,000 could, in his model, be marketed at about $190,000. He presented a conservative projection for a proposed Goodland site of roughly 78 units, estimating about $6.8 million in incremental property-tax revenue over a 25-year window under the RHID scenario.

On upfront costs, Felmmyer said a preliminary engineering study to ready the land for development would likely have to be done by PEC (an engineering firm). In the presentation he estimated that engineering and related work could be "about a million5" (he used the phrase in the talk); he suggested splitting the PEC preliminary-cost commitment with the city. The transcript later references a per-party figure of "375," but the speaker did not specify currency or units in that exchange.

Operational points and safeguards

Felmmyer described factory investments (he said roughly $20 million committed to a plant) and cited per-module shipping estimates from Tulsa (about $11,000). He also described workforce and social goals: hiring second-chance employees, paying roughly $25 an hour for factory staff, and working with nonprofits that could prepay houses for specialized clients (for example, transitional housing near a new mental-health hospital).

To limit speculative resale or conversion to rentals, he said his team uses deed restrictions and resale-sharing hooks (for example, sharing a portion of first-sale gains for a set number of years with a local community foundation). He said the model relies on keeping factory throughput high so overhead per house declines at scale.

Next steps and city options

Felmmyer asked the city to consider two near-term steps: (1) advance a preliminary plot and engineering estimate through PEC so the likely engineering cost is known and (2) consider a targeted change to subdivision rules that would defer developer construction drawings until after a final plot is approved (he said this avoids an up-front $300,000 expenditure before testing the site).

During Q&A attendees asked whether Goodland must commit to 78 homes; Felmmyer replied the developer could start with two or three houses as a trial. He offered model-home visits at the Wichita factory and said the factory planned a ribbon-cutting event June 25.

What was not decided

The transcript records no formal council motion or vote on the project, no approval to pay PEC, and no binding city commitment. Several cost figures and commitments referenced in the exchange were unclear in the transcript (see clarifying details). The presentation closed with officials thanking the presenters and noting follow-up contacts for additional questions.

Quotes

"We can build for about $100 a square foot less than what you can build for if you're stick building," Felmmyer said, summing up the project's cost case. He also said, "We raised about $15 million" for the fund supporting affordable work and that the Valley Center starter project would market homes for "190 grand." On engineering, he said a preliminary plot would likely cost "about a million5," and asked the city to consider sharing that early cost.

Next procedural steps

According to the transcript, Felmmyer asked PEC to prepare a preliminary plot and asked the city to consider splitting the cost of that PEC work. Any formal action, appropriation, or RHID authorization to proceed was not recorded in the provided transcript.