Mass-timber production, barely more than a decade old in North America, is encountering some growing pains.

Wait times stretch months for new material such as cross-laminated timber panels, leaving construction schedules on hold.

At the same time, new factories are coming online – some branched off from small sawmills and others backed by deep-pocketed international equity – and major timber companies are showing serious interest in becomingĚý players in the mass-timber market.

“Projects have been struggling to get supply and lead times of a year have not been uncommon,” said Iain Macdonald, executive director of the TallWood Design Institute, a collaboration of Oregon State University‘s College of Forestry and the University of Oregon‘s School of Architecture and Environment.

Demand is not the problem. Google’s Sidewalk Labs has announced a sprawling mass-timber project in Toronto that would have 34,000 housing units in buildings with up to 30 stories made from CLT and glulam beams. The buildings would be the tallest mass-timber structures to date in North America.

Other mass-timber projects under way include: a new headquarters building for Walmart in Bentonville, Arkansas; a 17-story, 137-unit residential tower in Vancouver, British Columbia; and a 300,000-square-foot, six-story speculative office building in San Francisco designed by Portland’s Hacker.

Mass timber‘s supply chain is not like those of concrete, steel and traditional timber framing. Mass timber must be made to order and cut to certain dimensions. It must be processed to include channels cut to fit adjacent panels or beams, and in some cases, holes to accept hardware. It must be made to fit into the building being designed.

“If you want mass timber to work as a concept and to be economically viable, you need to involve suppliers early in the project,” Macdonald said.

There’s no off-the-shelf way to buy mass timber. That means developers, architects and their contractors typically engage a mass-timber supplier long before construction begins in an integrated project delivery method.

“It is very much a project-based industry,” said Hardy Wentzel, CEO of Penticton, British Columbia-based Structurlam – the largest mass-timber manufacturer in North America. “It’s not like a mass production of lumber or plywood where you make standard sizes. That’s just not the case here, but it’s not the case in Europe either.”

Long lead times also make it difficult for project teams to switch suppliers. If a manufacturer falls behind, project teams have few alternatives.

The supply shortage is having consequences on the groud for mass-timber projects.

“Most of the West Coast suppliers are really starting to be maxed out,” said Stefee Knudsen, a Hacker principal who is leading design of the Pier 70 office building in San Francisco. “This project is actually too big for most of the suppliers.”

Opportunistic European manufacturers are looking to fill the gap, scooping up North American market share where they can.

“The European supply chain is able to compete on the West Coast,” Knudsen said. “It’s looking like it could be a European supply of the mass timber (for Pier 70). It actually costs about the same to put it on a ship through the Panama Canal as it does to put it on a truck down the West Coast.”

Knudsen said she would prefer to use a local manufacturer if capacity were not an issue.

“We just need the supply to catch up with the demand,” she said. “It is hard to be an Oregonian and to think our project could be supplied by a European (manufacturer). One thing I hope happens is some more come online in the Pacific Northwest because I really support our rural communities here.”

ZGF Architects is designing mass-timber projects in Portland and Texas.

“Supply continues to be an issue, but we’re working through it,” Kristina Thomsen, a ZGF principal, said at a 91ĘÓƵ Builder Breakfast event in December.

More supply is coming. Locally, Swinerton Builders is investing in its own glulam fabrication capability, Macdonald said.

“That’s showing they’re seeing a bottleneck in certain aspects of the supply chain,” he said, referring to Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines that perform detailing work on CLT panels.

Swinerton officials could not be reached for comment.

A major timber company is considering construction of a mass-timber manufacturing facility in southern Oregon, said Macdonald, who said he could not divulge details because of a nondisclosure agreement.

“Major timber players are poised to jump into the mass-timber sphere,” he said. “The major timber companies for years have been kicking tires and looking at when is the right time to jump in. They have considerable capital, and as that happens, you’ll see some economies of scale.”

Mass timber has attracted vocal boosters for its lower carbon footprint in comparison to concrete, ability to withstand earthquakes and fire, faster construction timelines, and its warm look and ability to integrate into sleek, modern designs.

Other mass-timber plants are planned or beginning to operate.

Structurlam and Walmart have announced the manufacturer will open a facility in Conway, Arkansas, a suburb of Little Rock, to supply 1.1 million cubic feet of mass timber for the retailer’s headquarters. The facility will be housed, in a twist of irony, in a retooled former steel fastener plant that had been shuttered.

Katerra is another emerging player that could provide significant new supply. The company opened a 270,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Spokane Valley, Washington, in September. Katerra is backed by SoftBank, the same investor with large stakes in Uber and WeWork, and has raised eyebrows by closing a factory in Phoenix last year and laying off employees amid reports of unfinished projects. Still, the company has announced plans for manufacturing facilities in California and Texas.

Another, smaller entrant into the market is Vaagen Timbers of Colville, Washington. The company was started by members of the same family that operates Vaagen Brothers Lumber, a local mill company that dates to the early 1950s.

Vaagen Timbers was certified for construction in July, and is now providing CLT material for everything from a small ski lodge in Idaho to a Lutheran church in Minnesota.

“We’re at about 30 to 35 percent of our production capacity currently,” said Russ Vaagen, founder and chief executive of the firm. “But that’s not what we see for our market in general. Not all the architects have us in their sights as far as supply.”

There’s also some consolidation occurring: SmartLam, based in Montana, bought an operation in Dothan, Alabama, that was started by International Beams.

In Oregon, D.R. Johnson has been hailed by politicians as a new answer to the state’s longtime battles between the timber industry and environmentalists, and a bridge across the rural-urban divide. The Riddle manufacturer has by all accounts bounced back strongly after one of its CLT panels in March 2018 at the Peavy Hall project site at Oregon State University.

Following that incident, investigations indicated the material failed because standard procedures weren’t followed, Macdonald said.

“They heated up the wood too much,” he said. “When the adhesive was applied, it was dried before it was bonded.”

D.R. Johnson has since invested in climate control at its Riddle facility, instituted further quality control checks and made personnel changes, Macdonald said.

“They seem to have moved forward really well from that,” he said. “There was so much demand and so little supply that they were able to continue without a hitch.”

One of the first project teams to use D.R. Johnson’s CLT products after the incident was Urban Development + Partners and Beam Development for District Office in Portland’s Central Eastside.

The incident may have temporarily made it easier to get CLT material, said Eric Cress, principal at UD+P.

“We had no problem,” he said.

D.R. Johnson is in the preliminary stages of considering an expansion at its property in Riddle, President Valerie Johnson said.

“We have quite a bit of vacant property here at our plant,” she said. “I would say, yes, that we are looking at that.”

Industry officials said the Riddle manufacturer is rumored to be booked up with supplying the Sidewalk Labs project in Toronto. Johnson declined to comment on the project.

“The Google project is the worst-kept secret in the industry,” Macdonald said.

The forest-products industry is continuing to innovate to meet demand, Johnson said.

“We’re excited about growth,” she said. “It’s frustrating to not be able to feed more of it, and we certainly don’t want the market to get frustrated waiting for material. …ĚýI think everybody’s trying to gear up.”

As the industry matures, some manufacturers are seeking the next step.

Vaagen Timbers has made a bet on 4-foot-wide CLT panels that can be manufactured up to 60 feet long. They are ideal for uses such as elevator shafts, Russ Vaagen said.

In Europe, a popular size is 1,250 millimeters – slightly wider than 4 feet, Vaagen said. He believes the CLT industry will move toward a standard size.

“I do think there are going to be stock panels – and I think they’re going to be the 4-foot panels, and that isn’t because it’s what we produce,” he said.

Structurlam’s Wentzel, however, was skeptical that the industry would make such a move.

“We just don’t see a standardized offering,” he said. “There is no such thing as a standard building. Somebody in the supply chain is going to have to manipulate that standardized piece to fit the building.”

Structurlam does not keep inventory of manufactured panels. That would introduce additional costs into the supply chain and make mass timber less competitive, Wentzel said.

Wentzel said manufacturers are not alone to blame for supply issues, pointing to a lack of building professionals who are experienced in mass timber.

“Not everybody knows how to design and build the material yet,” he said.

Mass timber has proved to be a use for the small-diameter lumber that is readily available. Old-growth timber is not needed to manufacture the pressed panels and beams.

Macdonald said he sees an opening for CLT manufacturers to use reclaimed lumber. Wood material that is now wasted could be diverted from the landfill, he said.

“We’ve looked at processing those kinds of fibers from panels, and technically it’s absolutely viable,” he said. “There’s no performance deficit. The issue is there’s no supply chain there, so it’s not economically viable at the moment.”

In Portland, a cottage industry has sprung up of architects, developers and builders who specialize in mass timber. Some of the first mass-timber projects in the U.S. were built in Portland.

“Oregon has really been leading the charge, I would say, in the U.S.,” Wentzel said. “It’s a very good market for us.”

As the industry matures, it’s increasingly apparent there will be plenty of competition.

“The market is an unforgiving judge, so you have to be competitive, you have to provide quality, you have to be timely, you have to provide service,” Wentzel said.

As for supply, he added, the industry is growing quickly.

“It is nascent, but the market will find a way, and it is finding a way,” Wentzel said.

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Work has begun in Hillsboro on a mixed-use development that will be the largest cross-laminated timber project to date in Oregon.

AmberGlen South will have a total of 495 housing units in three buildings. At 449,457 square feet combined, the CLT buildings have more space than the First Tech Federal Credit Union office building, also in Hillsboro, or the Marshall Elementary School and McLoughlin Middle School projects in Vancouver, Washington.

AmberGlen South comes from The Wolff Co., a major developer based in Scottsdale, Arizona. The development comprises twin six-story market-rate apartment buildings and a five-story senior living facility. The southwest building will have 197 housing units, with two levels of structured parking in a double-podium design. The northwest building will be similar, with 155 units along with two levels of structured parking. A senior living facility, Revel AmberGlen, will have 143 units in five stories, with parking below grade.

“We’ve been a big believer in the Hillsboro area for a long time,” said Rob O’Dea, a spokesman for The Wolff Co. “Obviously, there’s a ton of jobs out there.” Major nearby employers include Nike, Intel and Salesforce.

The project site is at 91st Street between Northeast Wilkins Street and Gibbs Drive, just south of Tanasbourne and Sunset Highway. A fourth block is expected to be developed at a later date. The use of that block has not been determined, a spokesman for the developer stated in an email.

Hillsboro has long planned high-density development in the AmberGlen area. The City Council in 2010 adopted the to guide development there.

“What we really sought to do was take a somewhat underutilized office park and turn it into a high-density neighborhood,” said Dan Dias, economic and community development director for the city of Hillsboro.

The project is being designed by LRS Architects, with Katerra serving as the architect of record and general contractor. The project team plans to use CLT from Katerra’s factory under construction in Spokane Valley, Washington.

Site work is under way at AmberGlen. Excavation has begun, and construction cranes are being moved into place. The project is expected to go vertical this summer, with the CLT on track to be installed in August.

CLT has proved attractive in Oregon to developers who prefer the material’s faster construction timelines and lower carbon footprint, along with a link to the timber industry. Portland has been the epicenter of CLT construction in the United States, and this week again hosted the annual International Mass Timber Conference at the Oregon Convention Center.

Katerra, a vertically integrated housing firm based in Menlo Park, California, has entered the CLT market with factories in Phoenix and Tracy, California, in addition to the one in Eastern Washington. Competitors include D.R. Johnson of Riddle, in Southern Oregon, and Canada’s Structurlam.

“From our standpoint, there’s a couple of things that make it a really attractive material,” O’Dea said. “It allows us to do some things from a design standpoint. It allows us to run longer spans of material.

“Aesthetically, it’s a beautiful product,” O’Dea added. “The third piece of it is, it’s faster to build, which improves the economics of a project and gets the project to market more quickly.”

The city of Hillsboro is considering using CLT for a planned community center on 53rd Avenue, Dias said.

Future residents of AmberGlen South will have easy access to Portland via the MAX light-rail line.

“It is a hot spot,” said Cynthia Schuster, a senior projects manager with LRS Architects. “There’s just a need for housing, and people find the rents are a little cheaper.”

The project team also seeks to meet increasing demand for multigenerational housing.

“Seniors, they don’t necessarily want to go to a home where they’ll be isolated,” Schuster said. “They want to be in a community.”

LRS had worked on the site for previous developers before The Wolff Co. took over the project.

“Originally, Wolff would have preferred to do lower density on the site,” Schuster said. “The city was pretty adamant they wanted their four blocks and higher density. Obviously, it stuck and that’s what’s being built.”

The Wolff Co. previously developed The Arbory, a 276-unit multifamily development with 2,200 square feet of retail space in Hillsboro. The developer was under contract on a riverfront property below the west end of the Broadway Bridge in Northwest Portland, but walked away from a $9 million deal in 2016 with the Portland Development Commission (now Prosper Portland).

“We were under contract on that one, but we stepped out of the contract and terminated the deal,” O’Dea said this week. “There were some pretty significant design constraints on that site, and there were also some environmental constraints that made the project untenable.”

O’Dea said The Wolff Co. is interested in future development opportunities in Hillsboro.

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