SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. — After about two years of construction, a new wood plant in Spokane Valley is making a type of timber that is better for the environment than steel.
The Katerra manufacturing plant is the first factory in the Spokane area and the largest in North America to make cross-laminated timber, or CLT.
It is bringing 100 jobs to Spokane Valley and will produce about 24 truckloads of timber per day.
The timber is designed to give a building just as much support as steel but is a more lightweight material, said the building's architecture manager Craig Curtis.
To make CLT, machines layer planks of wood with glue and stack them together.
Curtis said building with this material makes construction more efficient.
"We can start to use wood to build taller buildings that up until very recently, the codes required those buildings to be built out of concrete or steel. Now we have the technology to go taller," he said.
Gov. Jay Inslee also visited the factory following his remarks at Spokane's climate strike on Friday.
"Our state leads in so many ways, and now Washington will lead the nation in manufacturing cross-laminated timber for buildings with the new Katerra facility in Spokane," Inslee wrote on Twitter. "This is just one example of how we can create jobs, transition to a cleaner economy and build new infrastructure with a lower carbon footprint through innovation."
He said this type of wood also provides an increased level of safety compared to using a regular wood frame.
"When you glue it together in these very large sections it becomes resistant to fire," he said.
The Catalyst Building that is under construction in Spokane's University District is using wood from this plant. It will be the first office building in the state to use CLT for structural reinforcement.
Catalyst will open in time to host Eastern Washington University classes in the fall of 2020.