A 2,900 square foot modular "cottage"-complete with a stone fireplace and cedar shake exterior-is now a customized sales center hosting visits for prospective residents of Fox Hill, Sunrise Senior Living's newest Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC), located in Bethesda, Maryland.

The design team at Sunrise Senior Living Inc. came to ModSpace with two basic requirements: create a sales center that will make a positive first impression, and deliver it fast in order to accelerate the condominium marketing process. An additional request was the ability to quickly remove and re-purpose the sales center once the sales objectives are achieved, which is typically a two- to three-year cycle.

The ModSpace team worked with Whitley Manufacturing of Indiana, a builder of modular structures, to obtain the look of permanent construction, such as the inclusion of a spacious vaulted roof, skylights, and a front porch with stone base columns.

"We wanted the high quality of our community to be obvious to our neighbors and prospective customers," said Andy Coelho, construction manager for the Sunrise Senior Living project. "Our goal was to create an attractive and comfortable yet unique sales center, where we could meet people and give them a feel for what their future community will look like. The vaulted roof of the cottage gives the interior of the sales center a general feeling of openness, while the exterior has a residential appearance and scale with dormers and a front entry gable," said Coelho.

"The speed of construction, and well as the ultimate speed of removal once the entire condo complex is to be completed were the reasons we went with a sales center development plan featuring modular construction," Coelho added.

High Quality, Quick Completion

The sales and marketing center used four modular units to create its interior space, and used a unique hinged roofing system to allow 17-foot vaulted interior ceilings. Construction was completed in five months - which essentially allowed Fox Hill to begin their marketing effort 50 percent sooner than would have been the case had they used conventional construction. The sales center is fully functional with two bathrooms, two spacious offices, two conference rooms, a well-lit great room for residents to choose decor, and several museum-style rooms for displaying the models and designs of the condominium complex under construction.