Prices Fork Village Apartments

On Prices Fork Road in Blacksburg, sixteen families have a lower heating bill because of how their walls are built.

Taylor Hollow Construction served as builder and designer on this 16-unit apartment community, built new alongside the historic Prices Fork Elementary building the Community Foundation of the New River Valley had already brought back to life as senior housing. Where that earlier phase preserved a piece of Blacksburg’s history, this one was about building something new the right way from the ground up: open to residents of any age, mixing affordable and market-rate units on the same site, and built to a higher energy standard than the code requires.

Every wall and roof panel on the building came from ACME Panel’s Radford, Virginia facility, Taylor Hollow’s sister company and the reason this project could go from foundation to a sealed, energy-efficient envelope in a fraction of the time a stick-built apartment building takes. The result is a HERS Index in the 44-50 range, EarthCraft certification, and verified savings of $1,134 to $1,323 a year per household compared to a home built to standard code. Across all sixteen units, that is more than $18,000 a year staying in residents’ pockets instead of going to the utility company.

The project drew enough attention that U.S. Senator Tim Kaine toured the site in the fall of 2021. It has since been recognized by the Virginia Governor’s Housing Conference and the Structural Insulated Panel Association.