By Debbie Cockrell

The News Tribune

The use of cross-laminated timber has come to warehouse design in Tacoma.

A new 10,000-square-foot warehouse, 1530 Center St. in the Nalley Valley, features CLT for its walls. The product was manufactured by Structurlam Mass Timber Corp., based in British Columbia.

The site, for sale at $2.9 million or lease at $15,000 per month, is being marketed by Brandon Gates at Kidder Mathews.

Gates, Kidder Mathews vice president, told The News Tribune that his client “wanted to try something new, other than the typical metal siding and/or concrete tilt construction.”

The client, Daryl Mechem, told The News Tribune in a phone interview from his Denver base that the project “was much greener than doing something in concrete.”

Mechem said a wholesale/retail-type company “would be well-suited for the property. It has an attractive front entry and office. And the office has CLT, as well.”

Mechem, who owns buildings in Seattle and Tacoma, noted that the “city of Tacoma was great to work with. It’s nice to have a city accommodating to business development.”

The site, in a designated opportunity zone, “allows a buyer to roll capital gains from any type of investment into a federally designated property within the zone and defer their capital gains payment from that sale for 10 years,” according to Gates.

CLT also is featured in Tacoma’s Brewery Blocks design.

CLT, first developed in the 1990s, consists of three to nine layers of solid-sawn lumber, laid at right angles to each adjacent layer, then compressed and bonded together.

According to Gates: “We’re targeting a completion date later this month and are planning an open house to introduce the property to the brokers in our market.”