By BRAD FUQUA/Philomath News
The Philomath sawmill and planing mill formerly owned by Interfor that closed earlier this year will survive to see another day following its acquisition by Portland-based Timberlab.
Interfor, which had acquired the Philomath facilities from Georgia-Pacific in 2021, laid off around 100 employees in February and March. The holdings include a little more than 80 acres with facilities on Industrial Way and near the intersection of Highway 20 and Highway 34.
Timberlab purchased the Interfor properties and equipment in June for $15 million.
The company’s president, Chris Evans, said the Philomath operation will support a new nearby cross-laminated timber facility. Timberlab anticipates making an announcement early next week on the exact location of the new CLT plant.
“I think today I can say it’s fairly close by — within a 25-mile radius of Philomath,” Evans told the Philomath News during a phone interview Monday morning. “I think that’s one of the things that was attractive about the Philomath site — the Interfor sawmill and planer mill — is that really to do a CLT facility well, you have to presort your lumber and have your lumber ready to go, energy dry it to the right condition to be laminated and then be sorted.”
“Part of our program was to put in similar sorting and planing capacity that was in Philomath so when the opportunity came up, it paired really well with what we had planned for the CLT project, so it’s going to be a huge, integral support of that program,” Evans said.
The Philomath operation and the nearby CLT facility will bring much-needed jobs.
“The whole area as a whole is going to benefit from both the acquisition of the Philomath mills and the CLT facility that will be coming in,” Evans said.
The company is still early in the planning process to provide an estimate publicly on the number of jobs that will be created, he added.
“I think we need to get into our planning sessions first and then we could have an informed number,” he said.
As for timing of starting up the mills, the planer facility will go online first with the sawmill coming in later.
“We have no immediate plans to start the sawmill back up today. … We really want to probably bring that online, the sawmill portion, when the CLT (facility) is up and running,” Evans said. “But in the near term, the planer mill and the dry kiln are definitely something that we are currently making plans for startup.”
Asked to define “near term,” Evans said the company is making plans on improvements with the planer mill to go online “in the next six months is probably what we’re looking at.” The CLT facility and the Philomath sawmill part of the operation will be further out.
“They will be breaking ground this fall on the CLT facility … that is like a two-year project to bring that facility online,” Evans said.
Earlier this year, Timberlab acquired American Laminators, a glue-laminated (referred to as glulam) timber manufacturer with Oregon operations in Drain and Swisshome.
“So the big reason that the Philomath mills were desirable was that we felt they had all the necessary equipment and everything to make good, quality laminating materials for both glulam and CLT and pairs well with the rest of our business,” Evans said.
Although it’s pretty much a given that the Philomath properties will see improvements, Evans said they are both in pretty good shape.
“There’s always ongoing maintenance and things to do but I think the previous owners had a really good record of safety and maintenance and keeping the facilities in great working order,” Evans said. “There’s some small upgrades that we’ll want to do but nothing major is really needed.”
Timberlab Inc., based in Portland, is a holistic provider of mass timber systems with in-house timber engineering, procurement, fabrication and installation services for construction projects across the country. It is a subsidiary of Swinerton, an employee-owned company based in Concord, California.
Mass timber construction is a technique that uses engineered wood products to build structures. An example would be the cross-laminated timber, which features single-layer panels that are bonded together using a high-strength adhesive.
“Now that we have the ability to do glue lamination and cross-laminated timber, we can use a lot of small-sized fiber, glue it together and make large shapes,” Evans said. “That technological advancement of being able to make 2-by-6’s into big beams and 2-by-6’s into big floor systems is really good. It helps to have a home for those products.”
Evans also said mass timber has a lower carbon footprint when compared to concrete or steel and is more fire resistant.
CBS Saturday Morning reported on mass timber projects this past spring with a visit to Oregon, a feature that included an interview with Evans and details of the unique project at Portland International Airport. Timberlab manufactured the roof for the airport’s recently-opened new main terminal.
Evans said the company is excited about the possibilities with the Philomath properties.
“With all these sawmills closing down, it’s really great to be coming in with a plan that will help revitalize an existing asset and also bring in a new CLT facility to the region,” Evans said. “We’re just very excited about that and happy that as we sell mass timber structures all over the country and install them and put them in place … being able to have that lead into the Oregon roots of Timberlab is great. I think these assets reflect that we’re excited to be in the community and excited for what this means to our community in Oregon.”