In the race to build taller and taller mass timber buildings in the US, Framework, a proposed 12-story all-wood highrise in Portland, Oregon, seemed to be rocketing highest. The design by Portland-based LEVER Architecture (a 2017 Design Vanguard firm), won $1.5 million in research and development funds in the 2015 U.S. Tall Wood Building Prize Competition. After more than 40 fire, seismic, and acoustical tests, Framework last year became the first mass timber high-rise building in the U.S. to earn a building permit.
Thirteen months later, the developer, Portland-based project^, announced Framework’s groundbreaking is on hold—indefinitely. According to partner Anyeley Hallova, hurricanes, fires, tariffs, and local labor shortages ballooned Framework’s construction cost from $26 million to over $34 million—$377/foot. Meanwhile, affordable housing tax credit equity pricing plunged by 20 percent. (All 60 of the project’s residential units were to be affordable.) “The majority of the problem was construction costs,” Hallova said. “But it all affects what you can afford.”
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