A 100% mass timber construction project is under way in North Carolina

An office building 100% made from mass timber has started construction within the Live Oak Bank campus in Wilmington, N.C. The 67,000-sf structure, a joint building venture between the GCs Swinerton and Wilmington-headquartered Monteith Construction, is scheduled for completion in early 2024.

Swinteron’s sister company Timberlab will provide the glulam timber and cross-laminated timber (CLT) fabrications. LS3P designed the four-story building, which is surrounded by trees and located in front of an expanded pond. The building is designed to achieve LEED Silver certification.

Building Four, as this structure is called because it will be the fourth building on the campus, is expected to accommodate more than 200 of the bank’s existing workforce. Previously, Monteith had completed Live Oak Bank’s 30,709-sf FitPark, a fitness and wellness center made from mass timber, steel, concrete and glass, with a 600-space parking garage. LS3P’s Wilmington office designed FitPark.

“Live Oak Bank’s commitment to creating a sustainable, attractive, and intentionally designed campus for our employees continues to be evident in the thoughtful construction and design that Swinerton, Monteith, and LS3P are deploying in Building Four,” said Live Oak Bank’s president Huntley Garriott, in a prepared statement.

All in on mass timber construction

Leveraging Timberlab’s expertise and resources, Swinerton has completed over 20 mass timber projects to date, with 10 more under construction. These include Phase Two of the Joinery, a seven-story mixed-use development in Charlotte with a 1,700-sf mass timber mezzanine level.

Jared Hoeflich, vice president at Swinerton’s Carolinas Division, said that Building Four is the Cape Fear region’s first 100% mass timber project. He explained that mass timber’s growing popularity as a building material is attributable to its lightness relative to steel concrete, its renewability, and its suitability to biophilic design.

On its website, the Port City Daily in Wilmington reports that Live Oak Bank invested $25 million for Building Four’s construction to keep up with the bank’s growth, which has increased to 925 employees today from 95 at its inception in 2012. The bank received $2 million in state and local incentives to expand its campus, under an economic development program called Project Buckeye.