22-04-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
Reframe Systems eyes Los Angeles market after fires
Reframe Systems, an Andover company started by former Amazon Robotics personnel, is entering the Los Angeles market in response to the devastating wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes in January.
The Andover-based modular construction startup Reframe Systems is building its first homes in Greater Boston. But some of its next units could go up on the other side of the country.
Reframe is entering the Los Angeles market in response to the devastating wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes in January. It's staffing up in California and plans to ship a 400-square-foot showroom unit out west this summer, as a proof of concept for contractors, government officials and residents whose homes were destroyed in the blaze.
The company was founded in 2022 by Vikas Enti and two of his former colleagues at Amazon Robotics in North Reading. Enti, Reframe's chief executive, wanted to start a business focused on addressing climate change and decided that putting his robotics and software background to use building energy-efficient homes was the best way to do it. Today, robots named Adam, Jeanie and Carlsbad are busy framing and painting walls in an Andover factory.
Reframe has only built a handful of houses so far, including its first last year, a two-story, nearly 1,000-square-foot accessory dwelling unit in Arlington. Vikas and his partners have big ambitions, however, envisioning a nationwide network of micro-factories. They thought they'd enter California in 18 months or so, but they accelerated that timeline literally days after the fires started: Reframe's board decided in mid-January to go to L.A.
'It became pretty clear very quickly that the existing supply and infrastructure in the L.A. market would not be able to keep up with the sudden spike of demand,' Enti said. 'All of the work we've been doing to build homes that are resilient applies really nicely to what the market needs there.'
Reframe's emphasis on climate-friendly construction makes particular sense in Los Angeles, he said, given that the city is fast-tracking permitting for homes that are all-electric and more fire-resistant.
The company's leaders are taking a two-phase approach. In the first phase, it will build the homes in Massachusetts and ship them to California, where a local general contractor will finish the job. It's already been in talks with GCs, Enti said. It has a design team in northern California and has been interviewing candidates for sales jobs in the L.A. area.
Reframe would then open a micro-factory in the Golden State, likely in Los Angeles County itself. That would depend on generating enough business to make the investment worthwhile, Enti said. The company is eyeing at least $10 million in contracts as a starting point.
It is not easy for a small Boston-area modular startup to gain a foothold in a real estate market 3,000 miles away, but Enti sees the wildfires as presenting unique circumstances.
Generally speaking, shipping a pre-built home across the country would be prohibitively expensive, as contractors often have to pay for escort vehicles and sometimes a police escort to tail the trucks carrying the structures.
However, the significantly inflated costs of rebuilding in fire-ravaged places like Altadena and the Palisades changes that math, according to Enti. Labor and other costs are substantial for rebuilding so many properties at once, especially given the construction already set to happen in L.A. for the World Cup in 2026 and the Olympics in 2028.
'It's a market that is four to five times as high in cost compared to what we're seeing in New England,' Enti said.
As it is, for duplexes and larger buildings, Reframe has aimed for a price of under $300 per square foot. The company designs modules narrower than 12 feet in order to limit shipping costs, he said.
The showcase ADU is meant not only to 'allow us to have a product in the field that customers and regulators can touch and feel,' Enti said, but to help get Reframe's Andover factory certified to produce housing in California. He said earlier this month that the company hopes to start shifting production to an L.A.-area factory in early 2026.
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