Stora Enso said Oct. 22 it will permanently close its cross-laminated timber line at Gruvön, Sweden, at the end of 2026, cutting about 80 positions. The company’s release blamed slower market growth than expected, higher timber costs and relatively high fixed production costs. Europe’s largest CLT producer will keep serving customers from its three plants in the Czech Republic and Austria.
The same week, on the other side of the Atlantic, Timberlab made its first production CLT panels at its new plant in Millersburg, Oregon. The Swinerton subsidiary is betting that U.S. demand will fill a factory sized for 7 million to 9 million square feet of panels a year, roughly 100,000 cubic meters.
Timberlab’s CLT plant now needs APA certification
The first panels aren’t sellable yet. Jared Revay, Timberlab’s director of manufacturing, said specimens cut from Douglas fir panels in both E-grade and V-grade layups have gone to APA’s lab in Tacoma, Washington, Wood Central reported. CLT has to be made and labeled to ANSI/APA PRG 320 under the International Building Code, and Timberlab is seeking certification to the 2025 edition. It says it’ll make panels up to 60 feet long.
The 192,000-square-foot plant runs a radio-frequency press from Denmark’s Kallesoe. LEVER Architecture and DCI Engineers designed it, and Swinerton and Lindgren Development handled construction and development. Work started in February 2025 and the structure topped out that November, when Timberlab president Chris Evans said the plant would be certified and shipping within about 12 months. Fordaq noted the company hasn’t given a date for full production or said how many panels have shipped.
Why the CLT supply math is shifting
Until now, Timberlab mostly bought CLT from other producers and fabricated it in Portland. Making its own panels moves it one step back up the supply chain, and Evans has pitched the plant at California, saying no other CLT producer on the I-5 corridor can reach that market efficiently. The company also bought a sawmill in Philomath, Oregon, to restart alongside the plant.
Stora Enso’s reasons for leaving Gruvön are the same risks Timberlab takes on. Mass timber demand has grown more slowly than the plants built to serve it, lumber costs move, and a big press line carries high fixed costs whether it runs one shift or three. The difference is captive demand. Timberlab sits inside a general contractor that builds mass timber projects, and it already makes glulam at Swisshome and Drain, Oregon. U.S. public owners keep adding mass timber jobs, but the economics are still tight: Charlotte’s first mass timber firehouse came in around $1,660 a square foot.
For specifiers on the West Coast, the practical questions are timing and price. Certification usually takes weeks to months after specimens land at the lab. Once Millersburg is listed, project teams in Oregon, Washington and California get a domestic Douglas fir source that doesn’t ride a ship from Europe or a truck from the Rockies. Whether it’s cheaper than imported spruce panels is something Timberlab hasn’t said. Ask for it in writing before you design around it.