Multifamily 2030

The Building Material Poised for Massive Takeoff by 2030

Sponsored by Multifamily Executive Content Studio Nov 4, 2025 9:00am

The rising cost, supply chain challenges, and environmental drawbacks of traditional building materials such as steel and concrete continue to compound, exposing an urgent need for alternatives. Mass timber—made of solid wood panels nailed or glued together—can fulfill this crucial need by offering a renewable, lightweight, and high-strength alternative to steel and concrete.

CLT and Glulam: Tag-Team Partners for Taller Buildings

Mass timber is a blanket term for a variety of products, but two main types are most appropriate for multifamily construction.

Glulam (glue-laminated timber), which dates back to the early 1900s, is made by bonding several layers of kiln-dried dimension lumber with durable, moisture-resistant adhesives, usually oriented with grains parallel to form strong beams or columns.

Cross-laminated timber (CLT), which gained momentum in Europe in the 1990s, takes it further by stacking multiple layers of lumber boards in alternating perpendicular directions, then gluing them under pressure to create large, panelized elements with excellent dimensional stability and strength in both directions—ideal for floors, walls, and roofs.

Typical mass timber building construction uses both. “Columns, posts, and beams are, generally speaking, glulam,” says Tim Gokhman, managing director of New Land Enterprises. “Because it’s linear lamination, weight loads only in one direction. CLT’s grain orientation means it can take weight in both directions, so generally speaking, it’s used for horizontal applications like decks and floors.”

Why Mass Timber Is a Win for Construction

Gokhman, whose leadership helped New Land set the world record for the tallest wooden building in 2022 with the 25-story Ascent high-rise in Milwaukee, says the material has a lot of advantages compared with concrete or steel. “It’s faster, lighter, and more precise. It's also biophilic and significantly more sustainable. We're excited about mass timber because other materials really can’t compare.”

When it comes to structural performance, mass timber’s strength-to-weight ratio surpasses steel’s by 20% and is four to five times that of non-reinforced concrete. Its significantly lighter weight compared with steel or concrete means lower foundation demands—which can reduce costs and shorten construction time. The assembly process is where speed really comes into play, though, and can significantly shorten construction timelines and reduce costs for multifamily developments.

Mass timber panels can be prefabricated for quick on-site assembly. They’re also intuitive to install, reducing the number of trades required on site. Unlike steel, which requires welding, or concrete, which needs curing time, mass timber’s streamlined assembly process can be up to 25% faster than traditional materials—and the results are more accurate. “You get efficiencies that you just can’t get with traditional building,” Gokhman says. “We need to change how we build buildings because the way we do it now is really inefficient. You can tell when you look at a construction budget and see how much is allocated to rework and delays.”

Mass Timber’s Eco-Friendly Credentials

Mass timber is a climate champion. It stores carbon, uses sustainably sourced wood, and requires less energy to manufacture compared with concrete or steel. It supports forest management and reduces construction waste. Unlike concrete or steel, mass timber offers a carbon-negative life cycle and faster build schedules.

Softwood species like Douglas fir, spruce, pine, and larch are most common in mass timber production. They grow fast, have excellent strength-to-weight ratios, and are naturally abundant in sustainably managed forests.

Steel and concrete manufacturing are carbon-heavy: Steel production melts iron ore at extremely high temperatures using fossil fuels, and cement (key in concrete) emits large amounts of CO2 during its chemical transformation. By contrast, producing timber panels consumes significantly less energy, and, since wood is renewable, it avoids the depleted resources issue. In fact, mass timber sequesters approximately 1 metric ton of carbon dioxide per cubic meter. It also generates less construction waste because panels are prefabricated to exact specs.

Mass Timber’s Untapped Multifamily Potential

While most single-family homes and apartment buildings four stories or less are constructed of wood, only a sliver of higher-rise structures are—just 1% in 2023. The first U.S. building made with mass timber was constructed in 2011, and 2,000-plus structures were made with it over the next dozen years. So why hasn’t it taken off as a multifamily building material?

Building codes have historically limited the height and types of mass timber buildings due to fire safety and structural performance concerns. The International Building Code (IBC) only permitted the material for use in smaller structures, capping max height well below high-rise thresholds, until a 2021 update allowed mass timber in buildings up to 18 stories.

That was a huge step, but it didn’t immediately unleash mass timber as a multifamily powerhouse. As of mid-2025, 22 states had not yet adopted the new IBC code. However, legislative updates tend to come slowly, sometimes running on a two-year cycle or longer, so the outlook is promising that more states will come through soon.

Gokhman, whose firm had to obtain 14 variances to construct Ascent, says building codes are only part of the picture of what’s holding mass timber back in the U.S. “I'm not going to say that code hasn't impeded it—most developers don't want to get into a code battle,” he says. “There’s risk to spending design dollars without knowing if your building is going to be permitted or not. But I think the bigger thing is, it’s just newer technology. Where’s the labor force that knows how to work with it? Do insurance companies know how to assess and cover it? For now, it’s a bit of a niche.”

Poised for a Meteoric Rise

Despite the roadblocks, mass timber in multifamily projects is experiencing rapid growth and strong market interest: The market share for mass timber in nonresidential construction tripled between 2019 and 2023, showing strong momentum for multifamily and commercial sectors alike. As of June, there were 2,524 multifamily, commercial, or institutional U.S. mass timber projects either underway or completed. And Gokhman says the annual International Mass Timber Conference in Portland keeps breaking records for attendance and sponsorships.

“The Austrians pioneered this technology, and it took off in Europe and then Canada,” he says. “Now, the entire world is looking at the U.S. market and wondering when it’s going to really go big here.”

Gokhman believes the shift has begun and mainstream industry acceptance and adoption is inevitable. “The biggest telltale sign is when you look at who’s doing it,” he says. “Google's doing it; you’d expect that. Same with Amazon and Microsoft. But then Walmart built an entire campus out of mass timber. That makes people raise their eyebrows. Walmart? Yes, Walmart.”

Education about its productivity advantages, awareness of its substantial carbon benefits, and real-world success stories of tall timber buildings will continue to push both codes and industry pros toward broader acceptance of mass timber. “Will the U.S. industry have its ‘aha’ moment in the next four years or the next seven? It’s difficult to say because there’s been so much inertia, but it’s on its way—there’s no stopping it.”

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mass timber building Building Materials Multifamily 2030