Months after being announced, a ghost kitchen on the doorstep of California State University Sacramento is set for opening within weeks.
The Line, at 6415 Elvas Ave., came together through a construction method designed to save time and labor, according to the president of the general contractor for the project, Mark III Construction Inc. in Sacramento.
"Sutter Capital Group needed a solution that would dramatically reduce the project schedule," Mark III President Dan Carlton said in an email. "In order to meet this aggressive schedule, we proposed a volumetric modular approach. This meant that all of the kitchens were manufactured off-site in our South Sacramento manufacturing facility."
Carlton said a truck then delivered the kitchens, and a crane put them in place inside the existing 5,045-square-foot building on the site. The Line is planned to have 11 kitchens available for rent to food entrepreneurs to create concepts for sale, along with a lounge for delivery drivers to wait for orders and a walk-up window for direct consumer sales.
Tyler Girimonte, a principal at project developer and owner Sutter Capital Group, said in an email the company is targeting a mid-April opening for The Line.
Last fall, Sutter Capital announced the owners of sushi restaurant Kru Contemporary Japanese Cuisine and hot chicken outlet Nash & Proper planned to offer delivery and takeout options through The Line. It's not clear whether any other restaurant owners or entrepreneurs have rented a kitchen, though The Line's website has a form for potential tenants.
Volumetric modular construction made sense for The Line because it enabled Mark III to do the job with half the labor, Carlton said.
"With today’s shortages of craft labor and the expected continued decline of craft labor, volumetric construction in a manufacturing environment is the way of today and the future for the construction industry," he said.
Mark III has used volumetric modular construction on several projects, with more underway, Carlton said. Primarily, the company uses it for medical/health care jobs to build standardized patient exam rooms or bathroom modules off-site, he said.
Those buildings' components, from walls to ceilings to mechanical systems infrastructure, are all built off-site in such a method. For The Line, the method meant an overall construction time of less than four months, according to Mark III.
Total project costs were not disclosed. Sutter Capital acquired the site for The Line last May for $1.425 million.
