Saltair Turns an Award-Winning SDA Build into Repeatable Model

The builder has now proven the approach across four regional Queensland sites for a single client.

Central to the model is a single source of accountability. Saltair acts as principal contractor across the full program. That removes what managing director Steve Bridger calls the “coordination burden”, and the risk of finger-pointing between designer, manufacturer and builder.

“That single line of accountability is what lets a client plan intake, funding and program with confidence, because there’s one team responsible for the outcome end to end,” he said.

That accountability is backed by a factory process built for repeatability.

Under Saltair’s Enliven partnership with Apollo SDA (pictured top), the same High Physical Support (HPS) and Robust SDA housing types have gone up in Bribie Island, Gladstone, Rockhampton and Mackay.

That’s 68 NDIS-compliant modules in total.

Bridger said the housing type stays constant from site to site, with the same floor plans, fixtures, finishes and the same factory quality checks, no matter how far a site is from Saltair’s Sunshine Coast or Brisbane factories.

What changes is everything site-specific, from civil works and transport logistics to council requirements and climate-driven adjustments.

Bridger wants to clear up a common assumption about what that repeatability costs a client in quality.

“The biggest misconception is that modular means a trade-off, either faster and cheaper, or compliant and high-quality, but not both,” he said. “In practice the opposite is true in a compliance-heavy sector: the controlled factory environment is what makes rigorous, repeatable compliance achievable at scale.”

Production managers, contract administrators and project managers check every module against the NCC and SDA Design Guidelines at each stage, he said.

That happens instead of trying to catch problems on site. Fixing a defect in the factory costs far less than fixing it after install.

The model’s toughest test yet was Bellara Community Residences on Bribie Island, built with Apollo SDA.

It has a two-bedroom HPS home and two one-bedroom Robust villas on one 1400sq m site. Each home exceeds NDIS SDA Design Standard rules while still looking and feeling like a home, not a facility.

That meant wider doorways and custom accessible ensuites in the HPS home, along with impact-resistant finishes, better sound separation in the Robust villas and a fully separated Onsite Overnight Accommodation space for round-the-clock care.

The project has since won the Community Accommodation Award at the 2026 Master Builders Brisbane Housing and Construction Awards.

Bridger says the win gives the business external proof he can now point to it when talking with developers and agencies who are still unsure about modular for compliance-heavy work.

Saltair can produce up to 2000 modules a year across 44,000sq m of factory space. It also holds standing spots on the Homes NSW Modular Taskforce and the QBuild Government and Social Housing panel.

Saltair has evidence to back the case for scaling past four sites. As Bridger puts it, taking the model to 10 sites is “a matter of sequencing production and site works, not reinventing the model”.

SDA demand still runs well ahead of supply. Aged care is shaping up as the next natural step. Bellara, then, looks less like a one-off win. It looks more like proof of where the model goes next.

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