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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 15, 2018)
3A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15, 2018 Collapse at Oregon State project trouble for CLT industry ment is delivering on its early promise. “The wood prod- ucts industry hasn’t had a lot to get excited about over the last two decades,” he said. “We’ve been down for quite a few years. Now, this thing is like a freight train coming through. We’re seeing build- ings designed and built with these new panels that are beyond beautiful.” The risk of new technology By JEFF MANNING The Oregonian CORVALLIS — When Oregon State University lead- ers decided in 2014 it was time to replace the aging home of its forestry school, they wanted more than a new building. They wanted a statement. The new Peavy Hall would symbolize the rebirth of the state’s timber industry by showcasing its signature inno- vation: cross-laminated timber. With its ambitious use of wood that’s been fortified to rival steel, Peavy Hall would under- score Oregon’s place at the forefront of a revitalized forest products market. But the general contractor saw significant risks in using an untested CLT manufac- turer, like the one hired to sup- ply the Corvallis project, and wanted financial cover, docu- ments obtained by The Orego- nian. School officials, instead, moved forward with a new builder in December 2016. In March, a 1,000-pound section of the third floor buck- led and crashed onto the floor below. Engineers traced the panel’s failure to the glue and determined at least five other panels showed signs of delami- nation. The closer they looked, the more bad CLT panels they found; by August, at least 85 were marked for replacement. Peavy Hall made a state- ment all right: about the risks of new technologies and get- ting caught up in the enthusi- asm of the next big thing. The months of delays, the experts and engineers, and the replace- ment panels will add millions to the cost of a project that already has climbed nearly 32 percent, to $79 million, since construction began. The Peavy problem comes after years of efforts by state officials to promote a tech- nology they view as an eco- nomic engine for rural Oregon. The state’s timber employment has fallen 62 percent since its 1980s heyday, from about 80,000 to 30,000. In 2015, the state deemed the develop- ment of cross-laminated tim- ber buildings “essential” to the state’s economic interests. The panels were made by DR Johnson, a venerable Douglas County timber com- pany and newly minted CLT manufacturer, whose president, Valerie Johnson, sits on the for- estry school’s board of visitors. Oregon State officials ini- tially said they knew few details of the DR Johnson con- tract. It was actually a British Columbia-based subcontractor, StructureCraft, that signed that contract, they noted. But documents obtained by The Oregonian show that StructureCraft had no choice but to hire DR Johnson. Bur- ied deep in a 1,300-page “spec book,” Oregon State included a requirement that the CLT pan- els used in Peavy Hall be man- ufactured within 300 miles of the job site. Only DR Johnson met that requirement. The laminated timber movement sustained another blow this summer when devel- opers, citing construction costs, pulled the plug on the Frame- work building, a 12-story building planned in Portland’s Pearl District. It would have been the tallest wooden tower in the country. Tom Williamson, a Van- couver-based consultant and expert on the wood technology, said the setbacks, particularly the problems at Peavy Hall, won’t make it any easier for No backup plan AP Photos/Gillian Flaccus TOP A machine applies glue to the next layer of a panel of cross-laminated timber, or CLT, in the production facility of DR Johnson Lumber Co., in Riddle, in 2016. BOTTOM A forklift driver moves a newly assembled pan- el of cross-laminated timber. Oregon to become an import- ant player in the market. “You’ve got a new prod- uct coming on line and the last thing you need is a failure,” he said. “The concrete industry is all over this. You just can’t afford any black eyes early in the development.” Bandwagon On Aug. 1, the Oregon Building Codes Structures Board adopted groundbreak- ing language allowing wood- framed buildings as high as 18 stories, three times the effec- tive current limit. It is the latest move in the state’s long and sustained effort to make Oregon the epicenter of CLT and other mass timber components. Gov. Kate Brown, her Republican gubernatorial opponent Rep. Knute Buehler, and her predecessor, Gov. John Kitzhaber, have hopped aboard the CLT bandwagon. State and local officials have spent mil- lions hosting symposiums, funding design competitions and mass timber think tanks. Cross-laminated timber has been in use in Europe for more than two decades. It established a North American beachhead in Canada and is just now find- ing its way into U.S. construc- tion. Studies predict it could grow into a $4 billion market in this country alone. The fabricated wood offered politicians of all stripes the rare public policy two-fer: the pos- sibility of reversing the long painful decline of timber-based employment in Oregon with an industry that boasts posi- tive climate change attributes. Boosters claim CLT buildings store carbon while such com- peting materials as steel and concrete actually emit green- house gases. “It’s hard to overstate how important we considered rural economic development, it was like the holy grail,” said Scott Nelson, Kitzhaber’s adviser on business and economic matters. CLT won’t replace the tens of thousands of logging and mill jobs that have disappeared in the last five decades. But the increasingly popular material could create many as 17,000 jobs, according to a 2017 study conducted by VertueLabs, a nonprofit. Not everyone buys the buildup. Environmentalists are dubious about the indus- try’s claims of being better for the planet. Firefighters’ unions across the country believe tall wooden towers pose an unac- ceptable fire risk. “You’re replacing concrete and steel with a flammable material, that’s problematic,” said Alan Ferschweil, head of the Portland Fire Fighters Union. He said a CLT build- ing like Peavy — a three-story structure — he has no issue with. But a 12-story tower like Framework should never have been approved, he said, not- ing that Portland Fire Bureau’s tallest ladders can only reach seven stories. Developers recently scrapped plans for the first cross-laminated timber tower in Manhattan, citing finan- cial reasons. But they folded after the New York firefight- ers’ unions signaled their opposition. “I spoke out against this project out of concern for the citizens and the firefight- ers of the city of New York,” said Jake Lemonda, presi- dent of the United Fire Officer Association. As far as Oregon politi- cal leaders are concerned, the wood panels are sound. CLT passed rigorous and repeated flammability tests. So confi- dent are state leaders of CLT technology that in 2015 they declared it “essential” to Ore- gon’s economic interests. That cleared the way for build- ing code changes that culmi- nated this month with the new 18-story limit. There was another key con- stituency with doubts about the laminated timber. The folks who own the mills and the logs weren’t convinced of the market demand. In November 2013, the Oregon State forestry faculty invited prominent Van- couver, B.C., architect Michael Green to Corvallis to drum up excitement. Green, who had delivered stirring Ted Talks on the advent of high-rise wooden towers, wowed the 50 indus- try executives in attendance — including Valerie Johnson. The second-generation presi- dent of DR Johnson said it per- suaded her to expand into the new market. Paul Barnum, former exec- utive director of the Oregon Forest Research Institute in Portland, said the CLT move- Walsh Construction, a long- time general contractor in Port- land, was thrilled in 2015 when it was tapped to build Peavy Hall. The job included building its replacement and an adjoin- ing Advanced Wood Prod- ucts Lab totaling about 85,000 square feet. Estimated price tag: $46 million. But once it got a closer look, Walsh had concerns about the university’s reliance on DR Johnson. The company had just been making CLT pan- els for a year and there was no backup plan. “DR Johnson has no pre- vious experience with a CLT project of this size and com- plexity,” Walsh officials wrote in an October 2016 memo to university officials. “We know that DR Johnson has recently obtained and installed the equipment to do this fabrica- tion yet they have little expe- rience with the equipment and little experience with managing the extensive coordination … that precedes the production.” But Oregon State was firm about using DR Johnson. The company, located deep in the heart of Oregon’s ravaged timber country, had fulfilled the forestry faculty’s cher- ished dream when it rolled the dice and invested in CLT fabrication. The company declined to disclose the amount of its investment, but industry experts say such plants can cost $8 million to $30 million. The state provided DR John- son with a $100,000 loan for the plant. University officials make no apologies for including lan- guage in the architect’s bid package that effectively gave the job to DR Johnson. It only makes sense for the school to hire an Oregon company, spokesman Steve Clark said. The stipulation ruled out the other CLT maker in the North- west — Penticton, B.C.-based StructureLam, which has been in the business since 2011, four years longer than DR John- son. Penticton is more than 500 miles from Corvallis. When it became clear the university wouldn’t budge on the supplier, Walsh pressed for more money. It proposed that Oregon State pay Walsh 1 percent per month interest on all funds paid by Walsh to subcontractors. Oregon State refused and terminated Walsh. It hired another Portland-based general contractor, Andersen Construction. Oregon State agreed to pay Andersen $63 million, 37 per- cent more than it would have paid Walsh, which university officials attributed to escalating construction costs. Crews at construction sites are accustomed to high-decibel noises. Circular saws scream, hammers bang and bulldozers roar. But the thunderous crash that emanated from Peavy’s second floor on March 14 was far outside the norm. Workers who rushed to the scene were met by a chilling sight: One of the panels that made up the second-floor ceil- ing had come apart. A piece, roughly 20- by 4-foot and weighing half a ton, had col- lapsed and fallen to the floor. “I’d never heard of this hap- pening before,” said Green, the Canadian architect Oregon State eventually hired to design Peavy Hall. “It was absolutely unsettling.” In a March 19 memo to university officials, Andersen delivered the bad news. “It appears that at least 2 CLT billets manufactured by DR Johnson for the Peavy structure have a fabrication defect,” the company said. “These two billets were cut into six floor panels.” What followed was a pro- tracted and frustrating effort to determine the extent of the damage and a strategy to resume construction. Because CLT was so new, there was no accepted protocol for testing. DR Johnson fell on its sword in April, publicly taking responsibility for the bad pan- els. An internal audit revealed that crews had been instructed “to warm the lumber in stacks under tarps,” that were then glued together to make the pan- els. “Some temperature varia- tions inadvertently caused pre- mature curing of the adhesive, resulting in poor bonding,” the company said. Johnson, the company pres- ident, declined requests for an interview. Consult a PROFESSIONAL Q: My child’s baby teeth have cavities. Why should they be filled if they are just going to fall out in a few years? JEFFREY M. LEINASSAR DMD, FAGD 503/325-0310 1414 MARINE DRIVE, ASTORIA www.smileastoria.com teeth are very import- A: Children’s ant to the health of the child and the development of the dental jaw and forming permanent teeth. Baby teeth not only give the child chewing function, cute esthetics, but also serve an import- ant role in the jaw formation. 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