A local company is building houses for people moving to Southwest Florida while working around supply chain issues.

One way is by using materials that are so abundant that the supply chain problems become irrelevant.

A local company, Northstar, has been working on a building in Naples park. Northstar said using the materials they did for that building requires fewer workers, meaning houses go up faster.

The Collier County home isn’t made of wood, steel, or concrete. “It’s called a fiber reinforced polymer,” said Elijah Basile an inside sales associate for Northstar Technologies.

Technically, it’s a type of plastic, but Bonita-based manufacturing and building company, Northstar Technologies, said it’s a lot more than that.

“Termite, mold, rust, corrosion resistant,” Basile said. “We have an impact rating for 250 miles per hour winds and our quarter-inch ballistic panel can withstand a 9 mm to a 45 caliber round from 5 yards away.”

And, there’s no waste involved. No dumpster at the construction site and it doesn’t take a lot of people to make. Which is a big deal given the labor shortage in the building industry.

“I don’t think this is the time to be building a house in a good amount of time,” said Ryan Benson, co-owner of AVA Builders in Naples.

Benson, a local builder, said he’s excited by any new material that can alleviate the effects of the labor shortage. “Right now, the major constraint to us locally is labor and staffing and being able to get workforce to be able to arrive and complete the houses in a timely manner,” Benson said.

Northstar said their homes only take six to eight months to complete. An attractive option for families waiting for that perfect home that is still so tough to find.

Anyone who wants to own one of these Northstar Technology homes will pay a similar price to other more traditional buildings. But, Northstar said you’ll save a lot of money on maintenance.

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