Brick by brick: diaper king and Baby Boomer klemp makes his mark on senior housing.

Former Texas diaper king Wally Klemp is no babe in the woods when it comes to business Starting at the...uh...bottom, Klemp, 44, co-founded, chaired and was the chief executive of Houston-based Drypers Corp., a diaper giant that ranked No. 1 on the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing companies in 1993. Now Klemp and a partner have begun building Cascades Mason Park, a 66-unit independent living apartment complex in the Houston area for clients ages 55 and up.

But how much does an entrepreneurial diaper manufacturer know about building for seniors?

As it turns out, Klemp knows plenty. What appears to be a career leap is really just a baby step from the profession he learned at his father's knee.

"Both my father and grandfather owned construction companies," Klemp says. " I grew up in the business and worked my way through college by building houses. After Drypers was sold On 2000), I realized that I'd never really given up my ambition to build."

That ambition jelled into the plan for Cascades Mason Park last year when Klemp and Bob Bahme, met and became partners In Cascades Real Estate Development. Bahme brings to the partnership more than 25 years of real estate experience, most of it in the development and management of senior housing.

The partners are working to keep the upscale, 950-square-foot apartments affordable, holding down costs by using semi-modular construction and by preleasing each 12-unit building before construction. The first building should be leased and completed by December. Potential residents now tour a model home on the property.

Semi-modular construction means that everything except the apartments' concrete slabs and their roofs are built as modules inside a large manufacturing plant nearby, then moved to the Cascades' site for final assembly. The slabs and roofs are constructed in place in the conventional way.

"Kitchens and bathrooms, for example, can be built as complete modules, with plumbing, wiring and fixtures built into the walls," Klemp says. 'Rooms Can be constructed In the factory at the same time site preparation is being done. This lets us go from bare ground to move-in within only 90 days."

The Swift turnaround makes preleasing a workable arrangement For potential Residents. They can plan a according to a Straight forward timetable without worrying About construction delays. Klemp is Frankly enthusiastic.

"With most construction indoors, we will experience few weather delays. Nor will we have the scheduling problems that typically exist when you construct a building step-by-step with one subcontractor following another," he says. "This is the closet thing to just-in-time building that I know."

By waiting until a building is leased before they start construction, Klemp and Bahme will avoid one of the builders' biggest headaches "A major risk in constructing multi-unit facilities of this type is over estimating the demand and then overbuilding," Klemp says. 'The return on investment decreases or disappears if you've built 400 units but can only fill 300. Our plan is to pace the project according to market demands."

Klemp adds that because they aren't building everything at once, the company can also modify plans to suit future residents. "If, for example, we see that there is a demand in this market for more bedrooms in each unit, we can accommodate a change." Klemp says. "And we can adjust our marketing plans as we go along to suit changes in the marketplace."

In the 1990s, Klemp built Drypers into a public company with operations in seven countries and annual revenues of $400 million. The company declined after a currency crisis in South America, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and sold its assets in 2000.

Klemp has lost nothing of his entrepreneurial focus though his direction has shifted from diapering babies to housing seniors. Looking toward the future, he has selected several locations in Houston for eventual development. He envisions applying semi-modular construction to projects nationwide.

"Just-in-time production is old news in manufacturing circles, but applying the concept through semi-modular construction is innovative in the building industry," he says, "It will take a lot of risk out of building for seniors and enable developers to make a product that more seniors want." CLTC