I
n 2011, Bill Downing made
a pivotal investment deci-
sion. The president of Pent-
icton-based Structurlam
Products, a heavy timber maker,
had been touring wood manu-
facturing plants in Europe's
Alpine region for years, trying
to decide whether or not to
introduce their unique product
to the North American market.
Cross-laminated timber (
CLT),
dense wood panels developed
by the Swiss in the early '90s,
was touted as an alternative to
concrete—and a key technology
to building taller wood towers.
Setting up the infrastructure
back home wouldn't be cheap.
"We had to build a building and
put this very expensive, mostly
German machinery into the
plant," Downing says. Special
equipment is required to manu-
facture
CLT, which is created
by gluing together thin layers
of softwood lumber at right
angles under heavy pressure.
But if done right, the gamble
could pay off: Structurlam is
taking spruce, pine and fir—all
abundant in B.C.—and "tripling
its value" per square metre by
manufacturing
CLT.
One of Structurlam's more
recent clients is the Province of
B.C., which financed construc-
tion of the $25-million Wood
Innovation and Design Centre
in Prince George. That build-
ing, which opened last October,
is the tallest modern all-wood
structure in North America, at
COURTESY WIDC (ABOVE) FEBRUARY 2015 BCBusiness 17
t he mon t hly in for mer
TMı
"We always like Cinderella
stories—when a collector
comes across a work by
inheritance or acquires it
at a flea market, contacts
us and discovers that it
is very valuable"
– David Heffel, p.23
"The market [for
CLT] has been
good. It's a spe-
cialty product,
but the demand
is building. It's
not going crazy,
but it's growing."
F e b r u a r y 2 0 15
Faster, Higher, Stronger
N a t u r a l R e s o u r c e s
B.C. has become a global leader in developing taller wood
towers. Can forestry's new specialty grow into a
major export? by Trevor Melanson
– Bill Downing,
Structurlam Products
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