Massachusetts picks eight projects, from schools to a 12-story affordable tower, to test mass timber
The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center picked eight building teams for its first MASS Timber Assembly cohort. Each gets $40,000, technical help and a project-specific analysis of cost and schedule, and the year-long program ends with public case studies.
In Cambridge, the nonprofit developer Just A Start plans two affordable buildings on parking lots at 1826-1840 Massachusetts Ave., near Porter Square: a 12-story building with about 76 homes and a six-story building with 29. Both will be evaluated for mass timber. Just A Start told the Cambridge | Somerville Independent that construction likely won't start until 2028, with opening around 2030.
Three schools made the list. Dighton Elementary, a new K-4 school, will test whether cross-laminated timber (CLT) can serve as a repeatable model for public schools. Salem High School, planned as zero net energy, uses dowel-laminated timber in its gym, cafeteria and wellness spaces. Milford High School will evaluate mass timber in its design.
The other four, according to MassCEC: Building D of the Bunker Hill Housing redevelopment in Charlestown, a Passive House building with factory-built load-bearing exterior wall panels and CLT floors; Salem Highlands, an affordable project also pursuing Passive House and weighing CLT floor systems; a zero-net-energy MassDOT D5 administration building in Taunton that will compare full mass timber with hybrid systems; and student housing for the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, where the team wants CLT made in part from reclaimed wood out of an old local mill.
MassCEC said the program will close with a public presentation and a set of case studies on the projects and what the teams learned.
Why it matters: State-backed cost and schedule analyses for CLT schools and affordable housing are the numbers builders lack when they price mass timber against steel and concrete. GCs and framers bidding Massachusetts public work should watch for the case studies.
Sources
- Mass Clean Energy Center Advances Sustainable Building Alternatives through Mass Timber ConstructionMass Clean Energy Center, Oct 22
- Porter Square affordable housing project will use mass timber as part of a state programCambridge | Somerville Independent, Oct 28