Still a residential staple, wood may be catching on as a primary material of choice for large scale business and industrial building projects.

But it’s not the two-by-fours and two-by-sixes you’re used to picking out at the hardware store.

A construction method called “mass timber” is beginning to become more prevalent and an expert in sustainable building practices is encouraging New York state’s developers to consider if it may be right for their projects.

Paul Crovella, and associate professor focusing on sustainable construction management and engineering at SUNY ESF, said technological advances have now resulted in major benefits to constructing large buildings out of massive pieces of wood.

“Everything comes pre-drilled, pre-fit, and once it arrives on site, it is picked and placed, and that gives us a great advantage in terms of speed of construction,” he said.

That speed of construction and the opportunity for lower cost foundations has the method picking up speed in New York state.

“There’s projects down in New York City, both office as well as housing projects,” he said. “Albany has projects going.”

He said SUNY ESF’s Gateway Center is only partially mass timber.

“We’ve got here some steel framing, but the majority of the framing is wood.” He said.

Recently, a 22-story mass timber apartment building opened in Milwaukee, and back at his office, Crovella said that has him thinking about a massive building project coming up in Central New York.

“The Micron project is going to be construction at a scale that we here in Central New York really have not seen in decades and so with that comes fundamental questions about what should we be doing in terms of making sure this construction is done right."

He said should Micron choose mass timber construction, in addition to cost and time savings, studies show employees could benefit too.

“People simply work better and have better physical condition when they are surrounded by a lot of greenery and nature elements around them,” he said.

He argues there are environmental benefits as well. He said mass timber takes less energy and less carbon to produce and because the pieces are made of laminated fibers, components can be made from smaller pieces removed through ongoing forest management efforts.

“When we make mass timber products, we’re actually using those members and joining them together to make some bigger pieces,” he said.

You may be wondering, didn’t we largely move away from large-scale wood construction in large industrial buildings decades ago in part because of fire safety?

“If you try to start a fire from a lighter and a big log, you will get very frustrated, so it’s timber of a size and scale that makes it very difficult for the fire to start,” he said.

So he’s urging Micron and other companies across New York state to embrace innovation, not just in their products but also in their building practices.

“Micron can make a very strong statement by showing that the construction industry can be just as technologically advanced as the semiconductor industry,” he said.

Micron has so far released renderings and rough site plans, but has not commented on specifics when it comes to building materials.