Mass Timber Group Show: Sustainable Building Experts

Trending in Timber: NYC’s Largest Mass Timber Project + Under Armour’s Sustainable HQ

• Brady & Nic

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How will New York's largest mass timber project transform the city, and what groundbreaking designs is Tye Farrow bringing to the healthcare sector? How are recent tariff changes reshaping the mass timber industry, and what role does mass timber play in luxury ski resorts like Montana's Yellowstone Club? Plus, discover Under Armour's innovative headquarters embracing sustainable construction.

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Timestamps:
0:00 – Introduction: What's #TrendingInTimber This Week
0:34 – Governor's Island: New York's Largest Mass Timber Project
2:54 – Tye Farrrow's Landmark Medical Center Design
6:29 – Tariffs and Their Impact on the Mass Timber Industry
11:30 – Historical Lumber Prices and Market Trends
14:02 – Yellowstone Club's New Mass Timber Ski Resort in Montana
16:49 – Mass Timber’s Role in Luxury Resort Accommodations
18:52 – Under Armour's New Mass Timber Global Headquarters
20:53 – Upcoming Mass Timber Group Summit in Denver
21:27 – Closing Remarks and Event Announcements

Looking for your mass timber community? Attend the 2025 Mass Timber Group Summit in Denver Co - Aug 20-22nd!

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so I just looked it up to see how many people actually do visit the Statue of Liberty. A little bit more than a couple thousand, so 4.3 million people.

Speaker 2:

So I wonder how many people will stop by the old Governor's Island then.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's good stuff.

Speaker 2:

All right, everybody here is what is trending in timber. This week we're going to start off with the largest mass timber project in New York, the $700 million Governor's Island project. Then we're going to talk about some great things that Ty Farrow is doing in the hospital world. We're going to touch on some tariff situations, the latest news, what's happening, what it means for Mass Timber, and then we're going to wrap with some Mass Timber ski resort stuff and then Under Armour's new headquarters. So, to kick things off, we're going to talk about that big project in New York. So this is the $700 million Governor's Island project, which will be the largest mass timber project in New York. It's going to break ground in 2026.

Speaker 2:

There was a big interview that the New York City Mayor, Eric Adams, did talking about it, and so here's what he had to say. So, nestled in New York Harbor, between Brooklyn and Manhattan, the 400,000 square foot redevelopment remains on track to break ground next year. So they talk about the size of it, where it's at. The people that are involved will link this article down below, but you can see from the pictures like how cool this is going to be. There's a lot of pavilion structure in here, like community spaces and we've touched on that before. Pavilion structure in here, like community spaces, and we've touched on that before, but it's kind of looking to me to be a little bit more of a sector that's evolving in the industries, like these outdoor pavilions, these meeting spaces, these community hubs, which is great for Mass Timber and this is going to be the biggest one in New York, part of a $700 million project.

Speaker 1:

So not to mention it'd be right down the road, or, I guess, right down the bay, from the Statue of Liberty, which would be just the most iconic thing you could ever be next to.

Speaker 2:

Totally. I mean, you're going to have thousands of people, maybe even tens of thousands of people, like visiting this every year. So it's just it's more exposure for mass timber. And I talk about this in like relative to PDX, right, like how many people fly through PDX and look up at the roof and say, wow, you can build buildings like this with mass timber?

Speaker 1:

I think this is also going to be, uh, something along the same lines there yeah, so I just looked it up to see how many people actually do visit the statue of liberty a little bit more than a couple thousand.

Speaker 2:

So 4.3 million people and you'll be president so I wonder how many people will stop by the old governor's island then.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's good stuff, all right. Well, you want to wrap it up there and head on over to a Ty Farrow article.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 1:

All right, Ty Farrow is always unveiling some of the largest projects in the world, and one of the largest projects that he unveiled not too long ago, about a month ago.

Speaker 1:

So Farrow Partners and Rubenstein Ofer, if I'm pronouncing that correctly, have been selected to design one of the world's largest new medical centers for one of the global top 10 rated medical research organizations. The Negev Health City Medical Center will cover 3 million square feet and provide 1,900 hospital beds, and so here's just like a quick representation or rendering of what it looks like. And if you spy with your little eye and you look off into the distance and you know Ty Farrow, then you'll recognize that there's some serious mass timber in the background already. You'll recognize that there's some serious mass timber in the background already there will be. You know, biophilic design is going to be the backbone of this project and I don't know when the unveiling is supposed to happen, but if you go over to his website, you can start recognizing what Ty Farrow you know he's already world renowned for. This is the the butterfly cancer ward in Jerusalem, the Helmsley Cancer Center in Jerusalem, 2200 beds.

Speaker 2:

So he's got tons of experience in the in the health care hospital sector already and he wrote an entire book on how the environments that you are surrounded by affect your physical and mental health and well-being and healing. And so if you read into what Ty's known for doing into this new project like, you can probably bet that there's going to be some serious mass timber components in there.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and see I'm getting lost with all of his medical facilities. This is the Herzog Medical Center. I'm trying to get back into the Rubenstein offer, so I want to give you an idea of the size and scale this massive, massive development here.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that looks like several dozen buildings. Well, they said 1,900 hospital beds. You don't house that in a small facility. Well, they said 1,900 hospital beds, you don't house that in a small facility.

Speaker 1:

So it looks like an estimated cost of construction estimated US $1.2 billion or 1.2 billion euro. Hospitals are the largest consumers of water by double or any building type. By double or any building type, the design will harvest, select portions of the hospital's wastewater, recycle and treat it for use in creating the largest new public horticulture park in the country, focused on semi-desert plants. So even on top of all of these buildings, they become open walkways and parks where you can pop outside from, like you know, do a little physical therapy, walk and pop down inside. And that's what Ty Farrow is known for is building these incredible, these superstructure neighborhoods that are all interconnected but most importantly, through, you know, looking through the eyes of nature, like feeling like that you're in the forest and having big open windows and big trees and just being connected in a space and instead of feeling so secluded with, you know, dark, cold, concrete type of walls.

Speaker 2:

Totally. Yeah. Well, I'm excited to watch that project progress and see where it goes. I imagine that's going to be a multi-year endeavor.

Speaker 2:

Coming back on this side of the old pond, the big splashy news that we're seeing everywhere right now is, again, of course, tariffs. How's that in fact, impacting everything? But, specifically for this podcast episode, how's it going to affect mass timber? So we don't know if these things are going to go into effect long term, short-term, at what severity, et cetera. But the fact remains that as of today, march 3rd, they're going back into effect tomorrow, so the 4th, and I've talked to several different people on both sides of the the border about what this means, where we're at the history of everything, and so I kind of wanted to just give a quick rundown and summation of that article. I'll link that down below for anybody that wants to read the details and nitty gritty on it. But basically, in a nutshell, the US imports about 30% of its softwood lumber consumption, and I think I'm wrong in this number, but it's 25% of that 30, or, excuse me, 25% of the 30% that we import comes directly from Canada. So we are a huge consumer of softwood lumber from Canada and there's also some benchmarking about in the lumber futures industry that the benchmark for that is Canadian timber, and so the price of Canadian timber definitely has a huge pricing impact on softwood across everything that we do, not just in the Canadian market, and so there's already softwood lumber agreements in place that have some existing duties on Canadian lumber that's coming in.

Speaker 2:

Everything that we're talking about now for this tariff situation is outside of that scope. So additional tack on type stuff and the the nuts and bolts of it is like, hey, tariffs are, are here, they're here to, to stay or to go long-term, short-term, we don't really know. Um, but it will have impacts in the mass timber industry. Um, if you take mass timber out of the equation, you just talk about tariffs in general. Um, there's a great little example about what tariffs do for all products in the category.

Speaker 2:

So in 2017, there was a tariff on I believe it was South Korean washing machines. So let's just say, a washing machine was sold for a thousand bucks here. If they impose the 10% tariff on washing machines, so washing machines coming in from across the country are now $1,100. Well, the domestic manufactured washing machines, they didn't stay at $1,000. They also increased, maybe a little bit cheaper to $10.90, but they definitely increased in price.

Speaker 2:

And then goods and services that are directly tied to those tariffed goods also increased in prices and so, like in this case, dryers. So dryers were not, they did not have a tariff on them, they were completely separate. But because they're sold in pairs and in tandem and everybody says, hey, when you think washer, you think dryer, those prices also went up even though there was no direct tariff impacted. And so some people that I'm talking to expect to see the same thing in mass timber, right. So if you have 25% of the softwood lumber consumption that you're seeing, come in, come in at a higher price, higher prices you're going to see across the board. And so what does that do for the mass timber industry long-term? I don't know. I'm not the right person to answer that. There are some very smart people that you could reach out to and talk to For the article. I interviewed Hardy Wenzel from Think Mass Timber. He's been in the lumber world for a very, very long time and then he's from Canada. And then I also interviewed Tyler Freras from Freras Engineered Wood the folks that produce mass ply panels and got the domestic producers perspective on it. So just putting that on the radar, that everybody says they're coming back.

Speaker 2:

What I found was interesting was in Forest Economic Advisors news summary that came out. They also talked about something that was related to tariffs, but a little bit ancillary. So they talked about Trump signing a second executive order that will focus on streamlining the regulatory permitting process, allowing for more harvesting of timber salvage, and so one of the big contention points, if you will, between US and Canadian forestry operations is just the access and availability to stumpage Right. So if, if one party has better access to cheaper stumpage, that means that is kind of get to the root competitive advantage for the US forestry folks and say, hey, how can we increase access to fiber for domestic producers so that they can compete on a more level playing field with the Canadian folks? So we'll see how all that shakes out. But those are important headlines if you're in the mass timber industry to be aware of because they will affect you. What do you got there?

Speaker 1:

Speaking to prices a little bit. I think people need to recognize that when it comes to lumber, sometimes the price is just the price and unfortunately or fortunately, what we saw through the pandemic was two historic highs and two historic lows crashes in the dimensional lumber market in the US and Canada. That has never been before seen in history, ever. The main point that I'm trying to kind of get across the table is it didn't matter if it was at the height of the prices of in history. It was still selling like hotcakes, because it's like, it's almost like well, I mean what limber is? The backbone? I mean small scale single family homes in America are built out of it. In Canada, you know, they're like the pallet manufacturer world. A lot of our society is built on it.

Speaker 1:

But what's interesting is like these tariffs. It's shaking the world up and it's scaring a lot of people and unfortunately it most likely will raise the price of lumber in the end and so. But the thing about it is is, if you take a look back at history, it's still sold all the way through and all the way to the bottom. The people were riding it to the top and riding it to the bottom and it's just kind of an interesting concept that prices. It doesn't really matter what they are. We understand that we want them to be cheaper as an end user or an end buyer, but these tariffs sometimes don't really necessarily have the effect that maybe people think.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, as far as like purchasing volume, for sure, but, like you said, those costs do get passed on to the end consumer or buyer, purchaser, developer, whatever. And so I think the the conversation in the mass timber world is, even if the, even if timber is still being purchased and used in whatever form, the costs do go up for the end user. And so, and just to be clear, to be clear, there is imports and stuff on inputs coming in that are not mass timber too. So you're talking steel, concrete, the components that go into them, steel and concrete, are both very heat intensive manufacturing processes, and what heats everything? Oil. Oil has a tariff that's coming in Um, and so it's not like just mass timber is being singled out or just lumber, like the building industry as a whole is going to be affected, and so how does that play into the competitiveness of mass timber versus steel or concrete? I don't know Um, but there will be some changes that are coming.

Speaker 1:

Right, yeah, definitely. Well, we want to pivot on over to the. There's an incredible project that just got done out in Montana and KLNA reported on it on the LinkedIn and we caught wind of this. It looked like that it was completed in 2024. So this is the Eglise Eglise, I don't know, are you better at pronouncing things than me. So this is a gorgeous, beautiful project. So, if you don't know what the Yellowstone Club is, first off, I looked up what membership fees are. The Yellowstone Club this is in Bozeman, montana, and it's a premier club, so it looks like that. Membership dues are about $400,000 initial if you got a little bit of pocket change with over $40,000 a year in annual membership. Oh, by the way, you also need to build a luxury home at no less than $4 million on their property.

Speaker 2:

So just pocket change.

Speaker 1:

A little bit of pocket change. Maybe you have some old family money that you can throw around. I'm trying to get back to this. So this is their new Yellowstone Club on Mountain Restaurant. So they built a mountain restaurant for their club members called the Eglise I'm probably butchering this for somebody. It serves as a base camp for a thousand acre ski hill and a summer recreation expansion. Located atop the club's first gondola, the mid-mountain location boasts panoramic views of Montana's Gallatin Mountain Range, which I mean as me and you know, we were both born and raised in Montana, so we're a little biased. But it's hard to beat the beauty of Montana out in kind of like the ruggedness of like nature, and so this is the epitome of luxury, where you're not really you know, you're not tenting it anymore on the trail trying to fight off grizzlies. You do that behind glass, you know. And your wine cellar here.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm really glad to see mass timber in that, because if you're on a mountaintop, doesn't matter if you're in the Yellowstone Club or your local ski like. Seeing timber is like a great compliment to that environment. And also I love seeing the um, the resort hotel accommodations industry, start to embrace mass timber. I know there's many, many projects in in Colorado and Denver, uh, using mass timber as well, for you know applications like this, but also hundreds of hotel rooms etc. And so I think the resort hospitality industry is definitely embracing mass timber at a pretty rapid rate from what I've seen.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we're seeing that across the board. I mean, it's tough to beat it. It's lighter, it's stronger, it's more beautiful. It's the trees. You know, if you go into a ski lodge and you're amongst the mountains and the forests, you still want to feel that Like once you're in the lodge.

Speaker 1:

Here's a quick little blurb here. So, to minimize the project's carbon footprint, to facilitate a challenging high altitude construction at 9,573 feet above sea level, ccy and this is CCY Architects they designed the roof structure with cross laminated timbers or CLT, which stands for cross laminated timber supported with glulam columns. And you can see these glulams right here that are kind of in the shape of maybe like an upside down pyramid supporting that cross laminated timber. And then here's their custom gondola that shoots you right into it. You know, just so you can have a nice little. You know, a couple of feet off of the you have a 15 feet into the cold and then swooped into the restaurant.

Speaker 1:

So this was completed in 2024, the Yellowstone Club in Montana, 14,000 square feet, mid-mountain restaurant. And I believe the team, ccy Architects, kl&a Engineers and Builders, jackson Contractor Group. I know there was a lot more that I'm missing here. I'll have to look them up later. But yeah, this is a gorgeous facility in Montana that they just unveiled, so I don't know if we need to be Yellowstone members. Do you got about a half a million dollars to burn?

Speaker 2:

Not necessarily. I mean, I could sell everything I own and have half a million dollars to burn, but then I'd have to live on the gondola. All right, Maybe next year? All right. So what do you got I'm going to? I think I want to hear about that Under Armour facility that you were talking to me about.

Speaker 1:

All right, let's do it. So Under Armour is Under Armour the clothing brand. You know the upside down X's or whatever it is, but they have had this project that's been steadily being built and there has been an update by Aspect Structural Engineers. Talking about this field just isn't for play. It's also a space to test new products and gear. Plus, it steps away from the new 280,000-square-foot mass timber building that's home to Under Armour's global business headquarters, located on the Athletics Brands Port Covington campus in Baltimore, maryland. The building itself features a track and a field area, basketball court and a flagship retail store, ball court and a flagship retail store.

Speaker 1:

So here's a couple updates of just the sheer size and scale of what's going on january 2024, you know. So these are about two to three months old, but the there's one. Here's the end rendering of what it will look like and here's a little bit of an update of where they are currently Overlooking the harbor, like it's just a huge superstructure project that's going to be incredible once it's done. Project team Under Armour. Binderholz Group, gensler Architects, whiting Turner Contracting Company, seagate, mass Timber, thornton, tomasetti, aspect Structural Engineers Provided Design Assist Services, mass Timber, specialty Engineering and Fabrication Modeling. So big team, world-class stars putting together a world-class project here. This is going to be cool to see what happens when it's done.

Speaker 2:

Yes here. This is going to be cool to see what happens when it's done. Yes, and so you'll actually see a lot of those guys out at the Mass Timber Group Summit in Denver. So if you guys are looking to get in the right room with the decision makers, people that are serious about mass timber, and you're looking for that three 400 level education no one-on-one intro level stuff like this is a summit for you and tickets are on sale now. When this comes out, ty Farrow that we just talked about is going to be a keynote speaker, building on his presentation from last year in the biophilic response. How are we designing these buildings so that you have a physical benefit to your body, speaking to developer owners, clients, tools for client, conversations, if you will, about the benefits for mass timber. So tickets are live now, guys. And then the prices do go up every single month. So get the early bird rates while they're hot and we'll see you in Denver. See you there.

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Brady Potts

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Nic Wilson

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