An Oregon group working to produce affordable housing and boost the state’s timber industry will get a big infusion of federal funds, the White House announced Friday.
The Mass Timber Coalition, a group that’s helmed by the Port of Portland and includes several Oregon state agencies, will get $41.4 million from the “Build Back Better Regional Challenge,” an economic development competition funded by President Joe Biden’s coronavirus relief program.
That money will go toward a manufacturing facility at the Port of Portland, which will build and supply highly processed wood panels for modular homes to be used as affordable housing around the state.
The program is proposed to expand the state’s “mass timber” industry, advancing construction techniques that use treated and reinforced wood for projects that wouldn’t be possible with regular lumber.
More than $10 million will go toward building a manufacturing facility at Terminal 2, a little-used marine dock near downtown.
Other funds will go toward forest restoration projects in the Willamette National Forest. And some will go toward rewriting local building codes, including in areas of Oregon damaged by wildfires, to allow for mass timber construction.
And the University of Oregon and Oregon State University will use some of the funds to research the use of mass timber in housing.
Curtis Robinhold, executive director of the Port of Portland, said the facility will eventually produce about 2,000 modular homes a year.. But construction won’t start until 2024, he said, and it likely won’t be ready to produce homes until a year or two after that.
But, he said, the influx of funds will allow the coalition to quickly start in on work to bring mass timber into the mainstream use, and to fund forest restoration projects.
“We are transitioning from talk to action. That’s always bumpy,” he said. “The bigger question is the longer-term demand for more money to make this work.”
But he said he’s excited at the chance to get the projects started.
“It’s a massive investment in a space that’s really cutting edge,” he said.
The federal government is distributing $1 billion among 21 regional entities for business and workforce development projects. The winners, across 24 states, will each receive between $25 million and $65 million.
According to a statement from the White House, the administration officials who oversaw the competition paid special attention to rural, Tribal and low-income communities, as well as communities that previously relied on coal for job opportunities.
-- Jayati Ramakrishnan