Rising labor and material costs have many developers and contractors looking to new ways to build their projects. One emerging material is cross-laminated timber or mass timber, which is a prefabricated wood system that creates a dense wood panel. It requires less labor and helps decrease construction costs.  While it has been used in Europe for two decades, it has become a popular material in the Pacific Northwest after timber died off due to disease. After the timber industry became depressed, the government wanted to find ways to use the timber and began funding research on CLT and mass timber on high-rise construction, according to KPFF Managing Principal Marc Press. “What started in the Pacific Northwest is fighting its way to the rest of the country,” Press said during a recent Bisnow event in San Francisco.