Along Fifth Street in West Oakland Monday, workers hoisted a brand new pre-assembled, fully loaded kitchen onto the second floor of an apartment building.

In fact, all five stories of the 110-unit project called the Union, were pre-assembled. Typically, a building this size would take a year to construct, said developer Rick Holliday.

It went up in 10 days.

"It is a gee-whiz moment. It's an, 'I can't believe we did it,'" said Factory OS developer Rick Holliday.

All the pieces were made and assembled in a factory in Vallejo and trucked to the construction site.

Workers still need to stitch together the modular units.


"It would take a year to build an entire project from the podium five levels down to this point," said Holliday.

That means less cost of construction and less of a nuisance for the surrounding neighborhood.

"You have much less impact with trucks and people parking," said Holliday. This is the first project locally produced.

Holliday built a modular apartment complex in San Francisco, but the parts were assembled outside the Bay Area.

Another developer has a modular building going up in North Oakland, but the project manager at the union said construction is going more smoothly than on more traditional sites.

"That type of efficiency is where it always should have gone. The rest of the world has met that efficiency, so finally construction is catching up," said project manager Jessica Goldbach.

KTVU was shown a rendering of how the development will look when it's finished.

The units here will range from $1,800 for a studio to $2,800 for a two-bedroom.

Holliday said cities can build low-income and affordable housing more quickly and for about 30 percent less money this way.

"What does that mean? You can build 30% more apartments. Or lower rents. Or both," said Holliday.

People should be able to start moving in to the Union by end of the year.

