Timberlab Announces New Cross-Laminated Timber Manufacturing Facility in The Mid-Willamette Valley


Timberlab
Workers with a beam of cross-laminated timber at Timberlab's factory in Greenville, SC.

The facility is set to open in 2027 and create 100 manufacturing jobs.

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Portland-based mass timber construction company Timberlab Inc, announced plans Friday to construct and operate a new cross-laminated timber manufacturing facility in the Willamette Valley.

Samuel Dicke, business development manager at Timberlab, tells Oregon Business over email the facility location is still being finalized.

“Our facility location is still being finalized on details so we cannot expressly share the exact location. But it will be located near the I-5 core in the mid-Willamette Valley. The facility will be operational in Q1 of 2027,” Dicke wrote.

The new facility’s construction is made possible by an investment from Swinerton, Timberlab’s parent company. In 2020, Swinerton opened its first mass timber fabrication facility in Portland, and formally launched Timberlab in 2021. In 2023, Timberlab opened an East Coast mass timber fabrication facility in Greenville, SC.

According to the company’s press release, the new 250,000-square-foot manufacturing facility is designed to support the growing demand for cross-laminated timber as a sustainable construction material. The facility is estimated to produce an annual output of 100,000 cubic meters of finished cross-laminated timber, and is expected to create 100 manufacturing jobs at full capacity, which would make it among the largest cross-laminated timber facilities in the U.S.

Last year, the Oregon State University-led mass timber and microfluidics labs were designated as tech hubs by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration. The designation qualifies the respective sectors to receive endowments of up to $70 million to support the industries’ growth and in the state. Timberlab has ongoing collaboration with leading academic research programs at Oregon State University, the University of Oregon, and the Tall Wood Design Institute.

Danielle Ridgeway, corporate public relations manager at Timberlab’s parent company Swinerton, tells OB over email that being within the Mass Timber Tech Hub “continues Timberlab’s mission of advancing the mainstream adoption of mass timber by being close and continuing to participate in innovative research with our partners at Oregon State University, the University of Oregon, and Tall Wood Design Institute.”

Cross-laminated timber is a wood fiber-based building material more moldable and environmentally friendly than traditionally-harvested lumber. Oregon builders and architecture firms have already begun investments in the building material. Gov. Tina Kotek has also championed building out the mass timber industry in Oregon by organizing the construction of a mass-timber modular housing site in Portland’s Terminal 2.

“Oregon has been at the forefront of the mass timber industry and adoption of mass timber construction, and we believe it’s the ideal place for this investment,” Timberlab president Chris Evans, wrote in a statement emailed to OB.