Mass Timber a Key Material for ESG-Driven Tenants

Developers are rightfully concerned about how wildfires can affect projects as they look to materials such as mass timber to help construct top-quality buildings that fit with sustainability objectives for ESG-driven tenants.

Climate change is affecting the health of US forests, and in recent years the nation has witnessed increasingly devastating wildfires. The repercussions of these fires broadly affect the water supply, air quality, and economy in rural and urban areas.

Dr. Paul Hessburg of the US Forest Service was joined by Paul Stein, SKS Partners in the session “Mass Timber: Contributing to Wildfire Resilience and Financial Returns” at ULI’s Spring Conference in San Diego last week. It was led by Woodworks’ director Melissa Kroskey, AIA, SE.

Hessburg shared how developers and building designers can help reduce fuels in our overly dense forests and Stein spoke of a new development in this space. 

Wildfires are ‘Inevitable’

Hessburg said the return of wildfires “is inevitable and California’s fire season is now year-round.”

He recommended being a promoter of adopting the WUI code in urban and rural environments, creating and maintaining defensible spaces, and maintaining working water storage tanks, hoses, and pumps.

Building with WUI-approved building products is effective. Among the steps are installing ember screens, keeping gutters cleaned out; concrete and stucco exteriors and fire-rated roofing. He said to limit use of wood decks and have any wood piles away from homes.

Hessburg said to avoid developing in high-fire danger areas and to use appropriate air filtration in office buildings and homes and plan for emergency shelters for evacuees in case of emergencies.

Cross-Laminated Timber Creates a Special ‘Feel’

Mass timber products, such as cross-laminated timber (CLT), can contribute to forest health, sustainability, and the financial bottom line, the panel said.

California’s first multistory CLT building, 1 De Haro, provides a mix of speculative office and light manufacturing spaces with an exposed timber structure creating an authentic biophilic interior.

Stein presented a WoodWorks’ mass timber business case study on 1 De Haro and discussed the building’s appeal to ESG-driven tenants in the Bay Area.

Located in San Francisco, 1 De Haro is leased to logistics company Samsara.

The wood was sourced in Canada. Stein recommended not to source wood products globally. Costs were about $7 more per square foot than concrete. 

Kroskey said construction with mass timber can be achieved without having to rely on only tall trees.

“If you haven’t walked through a building like this, you really have to,” Stein said. “You can just ‘feel’ it when you do. There’s nothing like it.”

He said the building “went up so quickly; we saved about four months in construction time and the wood helped us to limit the weight that concrete would have put on the foundation.”

The Class A 1 De Haro building is 58 feet tall with three stories of core and shell space over a concrete podium for four stories in total. It’s in a neighborhood with a strong advanced manufacturing industry.

“We wanted to develop a building that would appeal to San Francisco companies interested in ESG and integrate into the context of the community while delivering a beautiful place tenants and visitors want to go to,” Stein said.