Florida city breaks ground on its first 3D-printed home as experts call the technology all hype

Forget hammer and nails — the latest trend in homebuilding involves pressing “print.”A Florida city southwest of Tampa has broken ground on its first-ever 3D-printed home, as part of its affordable housing program, according to local Fox 13 News.St.Petersburg city officials said the technology will cut construction time in half.“You’re talking [about] something that might be a two — or two and a half week process — can be squeezed down into a day and a half, maybe two days,” Nick Bradford, owner of Structures Group, an engineering consultancy firm, told WFLA News Channel 8.Developer Bright Community Trust is building the exterior walls using a robotic arm that continuously pours liquid cement layer by layer along the home’s perimeter.The city leases its vacant lots to developers for a small cost, and they in turn sell the home to a buyer earning up to 120% of the area median income — roughly $96,300 for a single person.

The 3D-printed homes still require the typical permitting process and need to satisfy state building codes the same as any standard home.St.Petersburg’s goal is to eventually erect 150 single-family homes on city-owned land, Fox reported.Despite the hype framing 3D printing as the “next big thing” for housing, industry skeptics caution that the technology isn’t the magic bullet it’s made out to be.If it were, why hasn’t there been a “3D printing boom,” posed online edutainer Simon Whistler.

Indeed, he said, only hundreds of such homes have been built worldwide.He pointed to a number of failed projects. In November 2023, a partially completed 3D-printed home in Muscatine, Iowa, was torn down because the concrete mix failed to hit required structural strength tests. A deal struck in August 2024 between Prestige Project Management and Cairo, Illinois, to build 30 3D-printed duplexes ultimately didn’t materialize despite a $1.1 million investment in a printer.On the plus side, Whistler noted, in late 2025, Japan ...