Timberlab broke ground Feb. 27, 2025, on a 190,000-sq.-ft. cross-laminated timber manufacturing facility in Millersburg, Ore., according to statesmanjournal.com.
The facility is expected to produce 7-9 million sq. ft. of mass timber products annually.
The $117 million building will be built from the same mass timber that will eventually be produced there. Mass timber is an engineered product, with wood bound together to make it stronger, both for beams and walls, allowing it to be used for structural purposes, statesman-journal.com reported.
The facility was designed by LEVER Architecture and is being constructed by Swinerton Builders.
The project will create approximately 75 jobs with an average wage of $80,000. It is expected to open in 2026 and be Portland, Ore.-based Timberlab's largest facility.
Gov. Tina Kotek said Oregon is making an impact in the mass timber market. That includes the roof at the Portland International Airport terminal, statesmanjournal.com reported.
"We have been leading the way in our country around mass timber," Kotek said. "To have this type of facility coming in is an amazing next step."
Timberlab is a subsidiary of Swinerton Construction, a more than 100-year-old general contracting company focusing on commercial and large buildings. It has projects across the United States, according to statesmanjournal.com.
Swinerton launched Timberlab in 2021 so it could bring the manufacturing of wood for mass timber products in-house. It has mass timber production facilities in Portland and Greenville, South Carolina.
In 2024, the company bought the closed Interfor sawmill and planing mill in Philomath, Ore, statesmanjournal.com reported.
"We're going to do the grand opening of this facility and we're going to be going back to do the sawmill within six months of opening this," Timberlab President Chris Evans said. "April 2027 is kind of the timeframe for Philomath."
The site is next to a railroad, which will become "a vital resource for us to be able to ship stuff," Evans said.
The facility will be called Independence Hall, a nod to Evans being from Pennsylvania and because Timberland also considered a former sawmill in Independence, according to statesmanjournal.com.
Timberlab wants Independence Hall to become a showpiece for mass timber uses.
Evans said the company considered using mass timber for office spaces before the pandemic. But as demand for office space dropped, Timberlab has looked into ways to get mass timber into other types of buildings, statesmanjournal.com reported.
Aside from Independence Hall, the Millersburg property has room for an 85,000-sq.-ft. fabrication and finishing building and another building of up to 126,000 sq. ft.
The growth of industrial development like Independence Hall is helping Millersburg's finances, according to statesmanjournal.com.
"Our town's only 3,500 folks," Millersburg Mayor Scott Cowan said. "These kind of projects that come in really help balance so we don't have to pay more taxes."
