High-density, small-footprint projects may be a solution to easing the housing shortage in cities such as Phoenix. ZenniHome is leading the charge with its first mid-rise project under the ZenCity name.
The community, known as 29 West, will consist of two six-story towers on just half an acre of land in downtown Mesa. 29 West broke ground in mid-July and will contain two types of units: 30 studios and 60 two-bedroom floor plans for a total of 90 homes in the project. The units are being built at ZenniHome’s factory in Page, AZ. Meanwhile, project partner Caliber is preparing the site for installation. The base model pricing for the studio unit, the Denizen, is $90,000. The two-bedroom unit, called the Citizen, starts at $125,000. Multiple upgrades are available for both types of homes.
Livabl spoke to David Monson, ZenniHome’s vice president of marketing and design, about 29 West.
How did a project like 29 West come about?
We like to ask the challenging ‘what if’ questions as we’re developing our product and thinking about the future of housing. You’ve got the housing crisis, with millions of shortages of housing units across the United States. That’s a mix of all sorts of different housing.
We asked ourselves a crazy question early on: What if we designed a home that stands on its own? What if it was a great individual home, an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) cabin, or whatever you’d want to use it as, but was built out of a steel chassis to stack and be used like Lego blocks in a multifamily building?
We pushed hard early on, and our co-founder, Stephen James, a world-class architect and designer, worked very closely early on to see if we could do this. Does the engineering work out, and we were able to create that awesome design in a way so it could be a standalone home and as an ADU?
We then asked if we could push the limits. Could we rethink how housing is built and designed? Can we design one thing that we can manufacture in mass in a factory that is flexible in its use, and so depending on where the orders of interest are coming from, we can send it to a variety of different locations without needing a separate factory or doing unique one-off homes and one-off projects. It’s the same core product always coming off the line.
Why did you choose Mesa for your first multifamily project?
[ZenniHome co-founder and CEO] Bob Worsley spent most of his career in Mesa in the greater Phoenix area. Back in the day, he was the founder of [inflight magazine] Sky Mall and ran all his operations out of the area.
Bob started many businesses down there and eventually served multiple terms as a state senator in Arizona. He’s well-connected to the market. He loves the state of Arizona and the city of Phoenix and Mesa. Mesa was on our list when it came time to build a project. We knew all the developers, the mayor, and the city council. It was a natural choice for us.
Our factory is in Page, Arizona. We have focused on getting all our permitting and certifications done in Arizona, the first state where we would do serious business. Arizona, and specifically Mesa, made a lot of sense for us. Mesa is undergoing quite a bit of growth and revitalization in their downtown area.
Why are projects like 29 West beneficial to Phoenix?
There continues to be a housing shortage in Phoenix. There is a need for greater density in the area. And there’s also the goal of having a walkable city. We designed our building to stack five storeys high over a podium, and we’ll have a grocery store on that first floor. When you can bring greater density to an area, you can remove the need for cars and make a dense urban center where people have everything they need within a close distance. Mesa has done a great job with their light rail going through the city.
Could you foresee more projects like these being built in Phoenix?
Yes, especially given the flexible nature of this product. If someone wants to work with us on a project on another 90-unit building, we could do that. We have people always reaching out to us for varying sizes of these buildings. Whether an eight-plex or up to 200 units, this product can be used flexibly in many ways.
The configurations can combine in a variety of ways?
Five units are where we max out on height so that everything remains structurally sound and ensure that everything we build meets all codes and safety requirements. Five stories are our current limit right now. If we were to thicken some of the steel members throughout that structure, we potentially could go higher. But we found that five stories seem to be the sweet spot for us.
Things in the future could potentially change. But, right now, we thought we’re already fairly dense as these units are small, transformative spaces. Even in five stories, we’re getting more units than other multifamily buildings.
With five as the cap, you can go shorter — you could do a community of single-story homes spread out. You could have two, three, or four floors. All of that is entirely fine.
We have two units available. The first is the Denizen, which is 320 square feet. The Denizen is exactly half the size of the larger unit, the Citizen, which is 640 square feet. They’re the same width, and one is double the length. So, you could put two small ones next to each other and one large one on top.
Having those proportions makes working in several different configurations nice and flexible. So, a good example of this is we are in the process of designing three-, four-, and five-bedroom configurations of homes, utilizing the same base units and a great outdoor cupboard space between them. Thinking like Lego blocks allows us to be as creative as we want in terms of vision. And it’s fun to see all the different creative ways we can combine these to create solutions for people.
Can you tell us about ZenniHome’s sustainability efforts?
We’re working on something right now called Planet Wise. One of our goals was to have a version of our homes that could be completely entirely off-grid with all the modern conveniences you would want.
The ‘wise’ part of Planet Wise is an acronym. ‘W’ stands for water. We have a company that we work with that has an atmospheric water harvesting unit. Imagine you’re out in the middle of nowhere — maybe you don’t have access to utilities, or perhaps you simply don’t want to access utilities because you want to be more of a sustainable individual. You can pull all your drinking and bathing water out of the air. In Phoenix, you do lose some efficiency because it is in a dry climate, but it still works and is still entirely viable.
‘I’ is for internet: On our prototype units, we have Starlink, and we envision it for the ISP for homes far outside any cell or other coverage.
‘S’ is for sewer so that we can utilize septic tanks, and we have plumbing that allows us to recycle over 90% of the water used in a home for bathing. Then, you can capture it for watering your plants and irrigation. Again, for Phoenix, this is a great situation for anyone living in a desert. There’s such a strain on the water utilities.
The ‘E’ is electricity. We have solar panels, a battery, and an inverter. So, you can be entirely powered in off the grid. And if you maybe don’t need all those options. Perhaps you want a couple of those things. We will offer those as options depending on what your customer is looking for. Sustainability is huge for us. We’re very invested in it. We’ve been making choices since the very early days of development to make sure we are one of the most sustainable home options out there.
ZenniHome is using Ori furniture for its spaces — what makes it a great fit for these homes?
Ori is a brilliant team that developed the technology. The furniture transforms to allow residents multiple uses out of the same rooms. We have designed our homes around what they’re doing and the idea of transforming furniture while maximizing the use of your space.
When you think of a traditional home — when you’re awake, you generally use your kitchen, your family room, and a common area, and your bedrooms are typically wasted. You’re still heating and cooling them and paying those energy bills.
Then, when you go to sleep, you are using your bedroom, and the rest of your common areas are typically going to waste. You’re also still heating and cooling them, which is not energy efficient. The Ori furniture brings in this new concept. I can put my bed away and have a couch in the same spot. It’s a wonderful experience to watch a bedroom turn into a family room and still be a large size. It’s comfortable and a great place to entertain, watch TV, read, or work.
The bed is probably the most famous piece of furniture in our homes, coming up and down from the ceiling. We also have a closet that stores flush against the wall, but when you want to go in your closet, it comes out from the wall and opens, so you now have a walk-in closet. There is a desk that folds down, so it also doubles as an office. We’re always trying to find out how to make more use of the same space.
I highly recommend that anybody in the Mesa area go to our website, schedule a tour, and go through our prototype homes. And you can see the play with the furniture in action. It’s all very safe. It’s UL-tested. It’s counterweighted. The first questions people always ask are, ‘What if the power goes out?’ Well, it’s counterweighted. So, it doesn’t take a lot of force. You can push the bed up and pull it down. You can move the closet out. It’s not a problem regarding safety because of the counterweighting and how the motor was built. I could sit on the couch, bring the bed down, and it would come down, gently tap me on the head and realize there’s some pressure, and then go back up and move out of the way. People with small children or pets don’t need to worry.
To reach ZenniHome about future ZenCity projects like 29 West, click here.
