“You’re standing on the tallest wood building in the United States,” said Ben Kaiser on top of his Carbon12 at North Williams Avenue and Northeast Fremont Street.

For the moment, he’s right. It’s also the first residential use of timber framing at its height in the U.S.

At 95 feet and eight stories, Carbon12 is a shade taller than architect Michael Green’s seven-story T3; the Minneapolis structure held the distinction for only a few months.

T3 and Carbon12 both employ mass timber in their structural systems – T3 with nail- and glue-laminated timber and Carbon12 with a hybrid of cross-laminated timber (CLT) and a steel core. Both were asked to compete in the USDA’s Tall Wood Buildings contest, though neither won. A different Portland wood skyscraper, the Framework tower, ended up splitting the $3 million prize with a now-scrapped New York City project.

The design competition, backed by the Obama administration, evidently helped invigorate the race to erect so-called wood skyscrapers in the U.S., a contest Portland is well-positioned to dominate.

Building codes in the U.S. for more than a century have discouraged use of wood framing in structures taller than five stories because of life safety concerns. CLT, however, especially in concert with other forms of mass timber, have the potential to change this. They’ve already been in use elsewhere – notably Europe and Canada – since the 1990s.

PATH forward

Kaiser, head of development firm Kaiser Group and design-build firm PATH Architecture, to many people represents the human face of gentrification in rapidly changing Northeast Portland. Heavy on sustainable features, PATH projects are described as the epitome of green building methods, sleek design and low environmental impact.

Kaiser wants Carbon12 to be a continuation – visually and thematically – of his One North mixed-use office project kitty-corner across the street. (The other half of the Carbon12 lot is planned to contain a 65-unit aging-in-place concept called The Canyons.)

The CLT panels were delivered to the site in 22 flatbed trucks with brackets and other attachments already installed, meaning the panels only had to be fitted into place with the tower crane. The crane itself was only on-site for two and a half months.

Carbon12 will have two units per floor. Recesses in the east and west sides of the building will have ivy running up them, as high as it will grow. Kaiser, a registered architect, was inspired by the concept of a “nurse log” – a fallen tree that then nurtures other life.

“Once a tree falls, it’s only lived about half its life,” he said. “It gives those nutrients to the next generations. It’s a fantastic way to think about architecture, especially at this moment with the advent of CLT.”

Though the building flaunts its wood, it actually employs all of the big three building materials. Steel is used in the core and braces that connect floor plates to the vertical columns. And concrete is used on the basement, ground floor and garage. (The automated garage represents another first for the U.S. The German-designed underground system will deliver drivers their vehicles without them ever needing to venture below-ground.)

Kaiser said it’s wrong to think of building materials in competitive terms, as some unions and industry groups have done.

“I really think everyone should just relax and let the products perform where they perform best,” he said. “There’s plenty of market for everybody, and I think that we all need to work together to make each other better, rather than trying to out-prove one another,” he said.

Kaiser received an undisclosed amount from the Softwood Lumber Board to help test aspects of his project. He said he and his firm will only build with mass timber from now on. He thinks one day the skyline of Portland will be dominated by wood.

“This is our way forward, and we’ll keep applying what we’ve learned,” he said.

Knocks on wood

The Framework team plans to celebrate the award of building permits from the state and the city later this month. But it has already notched many milestones. The project has won design review approval, and concept testing – fire, acoustic, seismic – has been carried out at laboratories around the country.

The team now is looking ahead to a 14-month construction schedule, starting in late summer.

“The piece we’re looking at now is the financing,” said Anyeley Hallova, a principal with project^. “It’s a complex project of affordable housing in it, market-rate office. It will take a little while now to put that all together.”

But Framework’s East Coast counterpart hasn’t had the same good fortune.

The ownership group split several months ago when it became clear the New York Fire Department remains reluctant to adopt mass-timber performance, according to sources close to the project. And the New York Building Department is still following the 2012 International Building Code, not the 2015 one, which is said to be more favorable to CLT.

“They’ve been reluctant to engage with developers who are willing to do performance-based approval,” said Jeff Spiritos, principal of Spiritos Properties. He said his business has moved on to working on other timber-based projects in cities more inclined to support them.

The Northeast is historically fire-conservative. It’s also the cradle of the U.S. steel industry, which, along with concrete, masonry and union concerns are hitting back against CLT proponents angling for market share. The National Ready Mixed Concrete Association last year started the “Build with Strength” public relations campaign to promote steel and concrete and warn against wider use of mass timber products.

One recent email blast about a failed attempt to allow some wood-framing in Florida school construction was headed, “Florida Building Commission Stands Strong for Students.”

Ethan Martin is an engineer serving as technical director of WoodWorks, a campaign of the Wood Products Council to promote mass-timber products. He said the steel and concrete industries lobbied in the 1950s and 1960s to get those products more widely used.

“At this point, they literally have 100-percent market share of anything over five stories. So even if there are only 10 buildings a year built using CLT, that’s going to cut into their market share,” Martin said.

Andrew Waugh, a prominent British CLT proponent, estimates that in Europe, where CLT has been in use since the 1990s, the product represents about 0.5 percent of building materials used in buildings taller than five stories.

Getting the code changed to allow CLT is important, but Greg Kingsley, head of KL&A Structural Engineers and Builders in Denver says that more critical to CLT’s success right now are the local building officials.

Portland officials have made allowances for the use of alternative materials in high-rises. KL&A’s Platte 15 CLT concept was originally planned to be 15 stories, but Kingsley said it was bumped down to five to satisfy the Denver Building Department, which wasn’t willing to make an exception.

“Maybe in the Pacific Northwest, the forest industry is closer to your hearts; in Denver – maybe not so much,” he said. “Look, don’t blame the building officials. They’re just doing their job. They’re waiting for the proof … You should be proud your local building officials in Portland are innovative enough to want to be on the bleeding edge of this.”

CLT isn’t cheap, but cost savings can be made due to the speed of construction. Developer Farid Bolouri is hoping to achieve feasibility this way in St. Johns, where residents often are hostile toward intrusive developments. Alan Jones is designing a dense four-story apartment building on a small, centrally located lot. Cutting down on construction impacts is key to project success, Jones said.

“I’ve been watching (Carbon12) go up. I said, I think we can go faster,” he said.