Timberlab has broken ground on it’s new 190,000-square-foot mass timber manufacturing facility in Oregan’s Willamette Valley. Which, once built, will supply cross-laminated timber to the United States West Coast and beyond.
“This takes us one step back in the manufacturing process to be the producer of the CLT,” according to Timberlab President Christopher Evans. “Usually, we’re buying from other producers. We’re now able to bring that to the state of Oregon and produce local products.”
Wood Central understands that an important element of the new facility is Timberlab’s easy access to Interstate 5 and rail routes. In effect, this allows Timberlab to serve the California market, which, according to WoodWorks, has more mass-timber projects in the design pipeline than any other state.
“There are no other CLT producers on the I-5 corridor that can access that market effectively and efficiently,” Mr Evans said, adding that Swinerton, Timberlab’s corporate sibling, will serve as contractor and partner in the self-funded project.
The new plant will be fully operational by January 2027
Mr Evans said Timberlab expects the facility to be ready for full operations by January 2027 – with the first press panels pressed by Labor Day 2026.
Once operational, the facility will provide at least 100 jobs and produce between 7 million to 9 million square feet of cross-laminated timber every year: “We see them in small projects in rural communities, small towns like Medford and Wilmington, North Carolina,” Evans said. “That shows how it’s permeating the built environment as an alternative to concrete and steel construction.”
The new plant will work in tandem with a sawmill in Philomath that Timberlab recently purchased, giving the company a degree of vertical integration: “Part of the strategy of buying the sawmill in Philomath is to be able to source as locally as possible the timber material,” Mr 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, with Timberlab hiring LEVER Architecture, led by principal Thomas Robinson, to design the space. Robinson “has been a pioneer in the industry and has been on the forefront of a lot of projects in Oregon and nationally,” Evans said. “One of the things I think Thomas does really well is working with manufacturers to figure out how their process works and how to adjust the designs and constraints to fit that manufacturing process.”
- To learn more about Timberlab – one of North America’s largest mass timber manufacturers – click here for Wood Central’s exclusive interview with Jared Revay, Director of Manufacturing, last year. To learn why mass timber construction is to grow 25-40 fold over the next 50 years, click here for Wood Central’s coverage of current research from the University of Georgia.
