One Thousand One: How Prefabrication Is Changing Large-Scale Multifamily Construction
Klover’s work at One Thousand One in Philadelphia demonstrates how BIM coordination, prefabricated cold-formed steel wall panels, off-site manufacturing, and carefully planned logistics can help transform the way large multifamily projects are built.
Philadelphia’s skyline continues to evolve, but one of the most interesting construction stories taking shape along South Broad Street is not simply about what is being built. It is about how it is being built.
One Thousand One, a major mixed-use development by Post Brothers near Philadelphia’s Avenue of the Arts, represents an ambitious application of prefabrication and cold-formed steel framing in large-scale multifamily construction. The overall development is planned across approximately 1.9 million square feet and nearly 1,500 residences, with the first phase encompassing more than 828,000 square feet.
Rather than relying entirely on conventional concrete construction for the residential towers, the project team worked with BKV Group to develop a cold-formed, panelized structural system. At the center of that effort was Klover, whose role included BIM coordination and the manufacturing of 3,134 prefabricated wall panels from coil stock, creating a direct connection between digital construction planning and off-site production.
For Klover, the project reflects a much larger shift taking place throughout commercial construction. Prefabrication is increasingly becoming less about manufacturing individual components and more about creating a predictable process that connects design, procurement, manufacturing, logistics, and field installation.
Moving Construction Away From the Jobsite
Large multifamily projects traditionally require tremendous coordination among labor, materials, equipment, deliveries, and specialty trades, all operating within the constraints of an active construction site. As buildings increase in scale, that coordination becomes increasingly difficult, particularly in dense urban environments where staging space is limited.
Off-site prefabrication changes where much of that complexity is managed.
At One Thousand One, the panelized system includes exterior walls, demising walls, and corridor walls. Instead of constructing each assembly piece by piece in the field, significant portions of the building could be manufactured in a controlled environment and delivered to the project ready for installation.
According to BKV Group, the panelized approach can allow as much as 60% of a building to be fabricated off-site and potentially reduce construction time by approximately 20% compared with conventional concrete construction.
Those advantages are significant, but the real value begins much earlier.
Prefabrication requires decisions to move upstream. Dimensions, quantities, interfaces, connections, and installation requirements must be understood before manufacturing begins. That makes Building Information Modeling (BIM) and early construction coordination fundamental parts of the process.
At One Thousand One, Klover performed BIM coordination for the prefabricated wall panels, helping translate building information into the precise dimensions and quantities required for production. That information also gave the project team greater visibility into material needs well before field installation. Engineering News-Record reported that large quantities of materials, including coil stock, could be purchased nearly a year before construction began.
This is where BIM becomes more than a three-dimensional representation of a building. In a prefabricated construction environment, the digital model can become a bridge connecting design with procurement, manufacturing, logistics, and ultimately installation.
Manufacturing Is Only Half the Prefabrication Story
Producing 3,134 cold-formed steel wall panels was a major manufacturing effort, but getting those assemblies into a constrained Philadelphia construction site in the correct sequence required an equally sophisticated logistics strategy.
The panels were transported to the project across 202 tractor-trailer deliveries using a just-in-time approach designed around field installation.
Rather than delivering large quantities of material that would then need to be unloaded, staged, moved, and handled again, panels could arrive when they were needed, with tower cranes picking assemblies directly from trailers for installation.
That distinction matters.
Every additional material movement requires labor, equipment, space, and coordination. On a large urban project, reducing those movements can help decrease congestion while allowing field teams to focus on installation rather than material management.
It also illustrates why successful construction prefabrication cannot treat manufacturing, transportation, and field operations as separate activities. A production delay affects transportation. Transportation sequencing affects crane operations. Crane availability affects installation. Each part of the process depends on the others.
The result is a construction model that begins to look much more like advanced manufacturing, where information and materials move through a carefully coordinated sequence.
Using Skilled Labor Differently
Prefabrication also offers a different way to think about one of construction’s most persistent challenges: workforce availability.
The objective is not simply to replace field labor. It is to make better use of skilled construction professionals by moving appropriate work into environments where it can be performed more efficiently and predictably.
BKV Group estimated that a conventional 20,000-square-foot floorplate could require approximately 30 ironworkers and carpenters, while a panelized system could require about 10 workers and less installation time.
For an industry facing continued skilled labor constraints, that difference is important. Instead of responding to every schedule challenge by adding more people to increasingly congested jobsites, prefabricated construction allows teams to rethink the work itself.
More activity can occur in controlled manufacturing environments while smaller field teams concentrate on coordinated installation. Quality can become more repeatable, material quantities more predictable, and the amount of work performed under changing field conditions can be reduced.
A Different Way to Build at Scale
One Thousand One demonstrates that industrialized construction can work at significant scale without sacrificing architectural ambition.
The development combines a concrete podium and cores with panelized cold-formed steel residential towers rising to different heights. The lighter structural approach helped reduce foundation demands, while varying building heights and exterior materials create distinct architectural expressions across the interconnected development.
For Klover, however, the significance of the project extends beyond the number of panels manufactured or trailers delivered.
It demonstrates what happens when BIM coordination, cold-formed steel framing, prefabrication, procurement, logistics, and field installation are considered parts of one construction system.
The future of prefabrication is not simply about building components somewhere else. It is about moving decisions earlier, controlling more variables before crews reach the field, and giving project teams greater visibility into what will happen next.
That is ultimately where construction certainty comes from.
As owners and contractors continue looking for ways to deliver large multifamily and commercial construction projects faster, safer, and with fewer surprises, projects like One Thousand One provide a glimpse of where the industry is heading: more coordination before construction, more work performed in controlled environments, smarter use of skilled labor, and a closer connection between digital information and physical construction.
For Klover, that evolution reflects a simple idea: the more complexity we can solve before it reaches the jobsite, the more predictable construction can become once it gets there.
Source: Engineering News-Record, “Philadelphia Prefab Project Pushes the Envelope.”
