Construction is Underway in Milwaukee Wisconsin on the World’s Tallest Mass Timber Building

Construction is underway in downtown Milwaukee Wisconsin on the Ascent Building. A 25-story, 284-foot residential complex, constructed from mass timbers. When complete the building will be the tallest wood tower in the world, 4 feet higher than the mixed-used structure built in Brumundal Norway last year. The $125 million building will feature a hybrid timber and concrete frame is being developed by New Land Enterprises and Wiechman Enterprises. Laminated timber panels for the project are being manufactured in Austria and procured and managed by Swinerton Mass Timber of Portland, Ore. The building, designed by Korb + Associates Architects, will have 259 luxury apartments. Its interior will display the wooden columns and floor decks. The Ascent project received a federal grant from the US Forest Service to assist with the testing needed to prove mass timber’s ability to perform as well as traditional building materials like concrete and steel to meet U.S. building codes. According to the developers, the publicly-available data shows that mass timber performs as well or even better than traditional materials in fire, earthquake and wind conditions. The developers added that the laminated timber beams, slabs and columns that will be used in the structure will offset the equivalent of CO2 produced by 2,500 cars or enough energy to power 1,200 homes per year.