Timber skyscrapers could be made with Northern Ontario wood: Ontario's first cross-laminated timber plant will source lumber from White River.

• Date: 01 September 2019
• Author: Ross, Ian

Northern Ontario wood will feed the province's first cross-laminated timber (CLT) plant in southwestern Ontario.

Patrick Chouinard, a co-founder of Element5, the operators of a proposed $32-million facility in St. Thomas, said the fibre sourced for their operation will come from the White River area.

He said siting a CLT plant in Northern Ontario was their first option when they were deciding where the building was going to go. But after crunching the numbers, Chouinard said it made economic sense for the plant to be close to their customers.

"Because of the cost of transportation, it was decided that the plant really had to be in southern Ontario where the majority of our opportunities are."

The Ontario government announced July 23 that it's investing close to $5 million in the company's automated plant and the 60 manufacturing jobs.

That's tacked on to a $2-million grant they were awarded last February by CRIBE (Centre for Research and Innovation in the Bioeconomy), a Thunder Bay-based forestry research group.

Element5 is a Toronto and Montreal-based design, engineering and fabrication group specializing in mass timber buildings.

Their main product, CLT, is a wood panel made from gluing sawn lumber together. It's used in ceilings, walls and roof structures.

The company is positioning itself...