Project Team Erects Complex Philadelphia Mass Timber Project

By Johanna Knapschaefer
Engineering News-Record
July 29, 2024
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States, US East

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pennsylvania — Designing and building the first mass timber commercial office building in the Philadelphia metropolitan area required intense coordination to combine mass timber with multiple structural systems. Located in Newtown Square, Pa., the $44.3-million, 105,000-sq-ft building called Ellis Mass Timber is a complex five-story building set for final completion on schedule and on budget in July, about 18 months after construction started. …The team lost about two weeks in schedule but was able to “quickly pick up what we lost on helical piles during timber erection,” Byard says. Timber erection was completed in a shorter period of time—13 weeks, rather than 15 weeks, he notes. …Although the Ellis Mass Timber project has been more expensive than traditional steel and concrete, “the quality of construction, desirable aesthetics and environmental benefits have provided a positive rent-to-cost ratio versus traditional construction,” Spaeder says.

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