MENLO PARK, Calif. – A California-based construction company is making a move into the production of building products in Washington. Katerra will open a new factory in Spokane Valley, Washington, to produce mass timber products, including cross-laminated timber (CLT) and Glulam. The construction company says mass timber “represents the future of high performance building technology as a new market for building materials that are safe, efficient, economical, and environmentally friendly.”
With its new 250,000-square-foot mass timber manufacturing facility, Katerra is helping to scale the production of CLT in the U.S. so that the material can be more broadly adopted across the construction industry.
“CLT is perfect for Katerra in that it’s a material that creates beautiful spaces, is designed for manufacturing, and is sustainable all at the same time,” said Michael Marks, chairman and co-founder of Katerra. “This material represents a great opportunity to create new value within the construction industry and will be central to many of the projects we’ll be designing and building. We feel very comfortable and excited, particularly with the knowledgeable team we have, to make the jump into manufacturing mass timber. We are ready to help bring mass timber to the mainstream of U.S. construction.”
Through its end-to-end construction services model, Katerra will supply much of the CLT to projects where it will also serve as architect and contractor.
Construction of the factory will break ground later this fall, with production slated to begin by Q1 of 2018.