CHAFFEE COUNTY – A structure that looks as if it could have been made from a giant Erector set sprawls over a homesite in a new development just east of Salida.
It supports a dangling, moveable arm programmed to follow the path of the home’s outline. As it moves steadily along, curving this way and that, it oozes out a layer of concrete that will dry to supporting-strength in about 30 minutes.
On this day, it is building the forms for the foundation of a single-family house, a job that will take “one day and three guys,” said Matt DePalo, chief operating officer for VeroTouch Construction, based in Salida. That’s about a fifth of the time it would take to install the more typical foam foundation forms before pouring — and the material cost is about the same.
DePalo is explaining the technique to a Chaffee County commissioner and some investors as the fifth layer is applied and a technician suddenly halts the arm when he notices the concrete mixture isn’t quite right for the rapidly rising temperatures.
Other workers grab buckets to capture the still oozing concrete, which also has started to overflow from the funnel at the top of the arm. DePalo seemed unperturbed by the disruption.
“The temperature came up and the mixture is too dry,” DePalo explained, noting that when they started work in the morning it was 58 degrees, and it was now 80 degrees.
“Temperature change is one of the biggest challenges to this technology,” he said. “We’re working on a weather system that can be integrated with the operation.
“We’re really pushing the boundaries a lot in 3D printing.”
Indeed. Building a house out of 3D-printed concrete is 3D printing on steroids, and VeroTouch is among a small but growing number of companies working to perfect the emerging technology. It’s the shiny new object that draws a lot of attention, but that’s not all VeroTouch is doing.
VeroTouch is a tech company, not a 3D printing company, cofounder and CEO Grant Hamel emphasizes. His goal is to remake the housing construction world to focus on sustainability, reduce costs and build a workforce for the world of automation, robotics and standardization.
The country has fallen into the “fast-fashion type of construction” that wastes massive amounts of material and produces housing that doesn’t last, he said.
“Our focus every single day is how we can get everybody into a home,” he said. “It takes time. Compare it to electric vehicles — we’ve been working on that for 20 years. Housing is a tough problem to solve.
“We have to be holistic in our approach,” he continued. “We’re absolutely pursuing multiple technologies — robotics, automation. On the administrative side as well, streamlining the preconstruction process.”
And the new development at the historic townsite of Cleora east of Salida is the testing ground for much of what VeroTouch hopes to do.
A reborn Cleora
William Bale might well be pleased that the land once laid out for a town named after his daughter Cleora is providing housing space for the latest rush of people to the region.
The would-be railroad town was established in 1878 by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad in anticipation of it running a rail line from Cañon City through the Royal Gorge and on to Leadville, according to an account by author and historian Jan MacKell Collins. Cleora, named by Bale when he applied to have a post office at his stage stop there, would have a train station.
The town flourished at the news, but faded within two years, falling victim to a railroad war that gave the route to the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, which wanted its town just a bit farther west.
Most of the houses and shops built between 1878 and 1880 were soon moved a couple miles west to the newly created town of South Arkansas — which would become Salida.
Eventually, the only thing left of Cleora was the cemetery. It still stands on the south side of the river and is designated as a National Historic Site.
Now, that old town site is bustling again as builders work to provide much-needed housing in Chaffee County, where the population grew by 13.6% between 2010 and 2022. With projections of continued growth raising the county’s population to 22,929 by 2030, an increase of about 2,500 people from 2020, officials say the county will need 1,000 more houses for full-time residents.
And like everywhere in Colorado, the need for affordable housing is dire.
Hamel said new ways of building homes must become the norm because the old way is not working.
“The solution for this problem is standardization, using processes that are repeatable,” he said.
VeroTouch is focusing on two technologies: 3D-printed concrete and structurally insulated panels, or SIPs, which is a modular construction concept but is more versatile with building design.
Hamel said they are aiming to keep some home prices below the county median of $650,000, probably starting at $500,000 and going to $800,000. In the long term, he hopes the technology can be used for more affordable housing, but it’s not there yet.
For its part in the Cleora development, VeroTouch will build 16 homes with 3D-printed concrete and 15 using SIP panels. The 31 lots in the Cleora North plat are held by VeroTouch’s capital partner, inTouch Capital, which purchased them for $3.1 million in July 2024, according to Chaffee County assessor’s records.
Neither construction method is new (William Urschel is credited with building the first 3D home in 1939 in Indiana; his 1941 patent on the wall-building machine expired in 1961) or unique to VeroTouch, but it is working on its own ways of doing things. It has developed proprietary concrete mixtures (with patents pending) and is constantly looking for more efficient processes and ways to lower costs and prevent waste.
Their giant 3D printer is from COBOD, which provides the robotic machines worldwide. VeroTouch has ordered two more.
The work at Cleora could be called a practical research and development program — they’re perfecting the construction techniques while building livable homes. And the research will continue after the homeowners move in.
“We are working on developing a customer experience pipeline,” Hamel said. “It will include maintenance and ongoing landscaping contracts. We will help people maintain their home.
“We will be here in the community and will be there for the product.”
The details of the ongoing homeowner support are being finalized, as is the home sales side of the company. But it won’t be long before the homes are officially on the market.
Homes going up
VeroTouch built its first two 3D-printed homes in the South Main section of Buena Vista, and both recently went under contract. They are Colorado’s first completed 3D-printed homes, according to the company.
The two-bedroom, two-bath, 1,100-square-foot homes sit side by side on East Pine Street, and they attract a fair amount of attention even though they are well away from nearby businesses.
Within minutes of when an employee opened the homes for a photographer, two couples stopped by separately to see if they could peek inside. Both were visiting from out of state.
The homes got nods of approval as well as questions about the construction technique.
“I like the floors,” Jerry Broskus said of the polished concrete flooring. “This would be good for downsizing for an older couple.
“The younger generation is into smaller homes, too.”
He and his wife, Nancy, were visiting from Florida, where they have a 4,000-square-foot home and 6 acres that they aren’t ready to give up.
Both 3D homes were built for South Main LLC of Buena Vista and are under contract. They each were listed for $625,000 and were on the market for about three months, said Jake Rishavy, chief communications and growth officer for VeroTouch.
One R&D aspect is evident — one of the homes has smooth, finished walls and the other has the layered concrete look that’s on the exterior of both. DePalo said he wants to push the natural 3D-printed look that represents the unique aspect of 3D-printed concrete buildings.
“They’re pretty, buildable and strong,” he said. “We need to sell all that to the consumer.”
That might be tough with some customers.
Nancy Broskus said she preferred the smooth walls. Perhaps textured walls could be used as an accent. Then there’s the problem of hanging pictures on concrete walls.
“We have a system for that,” Rishavy said with a laugh and noted the wall hangings in the staged living room.
When the Buena Vista homes were completed, the 3D printer was moved to Cleora, where the first project was a duplex. One side features a second floor, which DePalo said is among the first 3D-printed two-story structures in the United States.
It took about two months to “print” the duplex, which was being finished recently with roofing, windows and doors.
The printer was then moved to an adjacent lot for construction of a single-family home.
DePalo said the printer can be moved from lot to lot in a day, but it takes about three days to move it if it must be broken down and hauled to another location.
VeroTouch plans to build three single-family homes in a row with the same floor plan to minimize changes to programming the equipment. The foundation for house No. 1 was laid July 10, and by July 25 the house was “within three print days of completion,” Rishavy said in an email.
By comparison, a house up to the roof can be printed in the time it takes for a traditional foundation to be poured. The time and labor savings are evident, even as the company is building in time now for research and development and equipment maintenance.
The five floor plans will be advertised soon. The homes will have detached garages and the option of adding an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, DePalo said.
Nearby, lots were being prepared for SIP construction, and the panels for two homes were already on-site, Hamel said. They were waiting for the foundations to be poured, one of those hidden timeline costs.
That’s why Hamel is intent on building “the job site of the future.”
Building an ecosystem
Hamel, 33, moved to Salida in 2022 as a remote tech worker, and got VeroTouch up and running in early 2023.
But he is not where he wants to be. “The country hasn’t trained our next work force,” he said.
“We need a paradigm shift — construction is the largest industry in the world, along with agriculture,” he continued. “We can’t not pay attention to it. It is one of the most manual industries and humans are going to be a part of it.”
Even with the automation, replication and robotics Hamel uses in his company, workers must run and monitor what’s going on at the site. Like the technician who halted printing the foundation when the concrete got too dry. Or the technicians who came running to capture the overflow and dump it into bins — it would later be ground up and remixed to avoid waste.
Hamel has partnered with the Salida School District and Trinidad State College to promote classes in automation and robotics. He offers paid internships and apprenticeships and has 22 full-time employees.
At a conference in Trinidad on rural technology earlier this year, Hamel said he wants to see jobs come to rural areas of Colorado instead of going overseas. Without a model at hand, VeroTouch created its own internships — he now calls those workers associates, and has hired some on fulltime.
As they perfect the technologies, he wants to be able to scale up and provide affordable housing. In Chaffee County and elsewhere.
But he can’t do it alone.
“The construction industry has not been as collaborative as it must be,” he said. “We work with others all the time, there are multiple communities within the industry. Nobody’s going to solve this by themselves.”