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Wood Design and Building Materials Gain Popularity

Commercial, residential and mixed use buildings made of wood instead of steel and concrete? Yes, this trend is gradually catching on in New York and across the country. The idea of what a wood building can be is expanding. With new state of the art materials, systems and techniques the design community is excited about wood projects, their beauty, strength, versatility and sustainability.

Flank Developers are building two new wooden Commercial buildings in Williamsburg Brooklyn at 320 and 360 Wythe Avenue. The timber being used for this project is Canadian black spruce that is specially engineered and chemically treated to be dense and fire resistant.  Ken Copeland, partner at Flank says “wood is just as cost effective as most construction materials and pretty much equivalent to concrete”. 320 Wythe Avenue will be a 15,000 square foot building with 11,000 square feet of office space and 4,000 square feet of ground floor retail space. 360 Wythe Avenue will have 46,000 square feet of office space, 18,000 square feet of retail and 27 Residential apartments. Asking rents for the office space in both Wythe Avenue buildings will be in the $70’s per square foot.

One example of wooden construction in another U.S. city is Hines Developers had finished a 7 story 220,000 square foot timber office project in Minneapolis in 2017 named T3.

Another example comes from Portland where a 12 story 90,000 square foot Mixed Use timber building called Framework is being built.

The 2017 Wood Works Wood Design Awards Winners include projects such as a New Haven Connecticut Wood School Design: Common Ground High School, a Multi Family Residential wood design building in Denver Colorado and several other award winners with beautifully creative design and construction. 

If you are interested in selling your property or you know someone who is planning to sell their Brooklyn NY property, whether a residential property,  a multifamily building, a commercial property, mixed use, multi family, co op or condo, vacant land or a development opportunity, call us. You will be very happy that you did.