91视频

Timberlab broke ground last week on a 190,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in the Willamette Valley that will supply cross-laminated timber to a growing user base for alternative building materials on the West Coast and beyond.

鈥淭his takes us one step back in the manufacturing process to be the producer of the CLT,鈥� Timberlab President Christopher Evans said Tuesday. 鈥淯sually, we鈥檙e buying from other producers. We鈥檙e now able to bring that to the state of Oregon and produce local products.鈥�

The CLT facility in Millersburg, an industrial hamlet north of Albany, will provide Timberlab with easy access to Interstate 5 and rail routes to serve the California market, which has more mass-timber projects in the design pipeline than any other state (Oregon is second), according to WoodWorks, an industry tracker.

鈥淭here are no other CLT producers that are on the I-5 corridor that can access that market effectively and efficiently,鈥� Evans said.

Swinerton, Timberlab鈥檚 corporate sibling, is serving as the general contractor for the project. Timberlab and Swinerton are self-financing construction, Evans said. Swinerton, an employee-owned company, is a financial investor in the Millersburg facility. Timberlab and Swinerton are building the facility without the need for a construction loan.

Timberlab expects the facility will be ready for full operations in January 2027 at the latest, Evans said. The company expects to press panels for certification around Labor Day 2026.

Once operational, the facility will provide at least 100 jobs as it cranks out 7 million to 9 million square feet of CLT annually, according to Timberlab.

According to WoodWorks, 710 CLT buildings are in the design phase across the U.S.

鈥淲e see them in small projects in rural communities, small towns like Medford and Wilmington, North Carolina,鈥� Evans said. 鈥淭hat shows how it鈥檚 permeating the built environment as an alternative to concrete and steel construction.鈥�

The CLT facility will work in tandem with a sawmill in Philomath that Timberlab recently purchased, giving the company a degree of vertical integration.

鈥淧art of the strategy of buying the sawmill in Philomath is to be able to source as locally as possible the timber material,鈥� Evans said.

Architectural renderings for the Millersburg CLT plant show a low-slung, boxy exterior, with a warm, airy interior made almost entirely from CLT panels.

Timberlab hired LEVER Architecture, led by principal Thomas Robinson, to design the space. Robinson 鈥渉as been a pioneer in the industry and has been on the forefront of a lot of projects in Oregon and nationally,鈥� Evans said.

Robinson has an ability to let industrial functions drive the design, Evans said.

鈥淥ne of the things I think Thomas does really well is work with manufacturers to figure out how their process works and how to adjust the designs and constraints to fit that manufacturing process,鈥� he said.

Gov. Tina Kotek was among the dignitaries who attended the ground-breaking event on Feb. 27.

鈥淭he introduction of a new facility in Millersburg will expand the supply chain for mass timber, bolstering our regional economy and helping make sure that mass timber is accessible for more construction projects,鈥� Kotek expressed in a prepared statement.