OSU’s new Forestry building delayed

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The completion date for the new College of Forestry building at Oregon State University has been pushed back another three months.

Oregon State spokesman Steve Clark told the Gazette-Times the university is now looking to have the building finished by fall 2019.

The three-story, 80,000-square-foot building was originally targeted for completion in the fall of 2017, but that timeline has been repeatedly modified amid rising construction costs and other issues.

Construction was slowed in March after a large section of subflooring made of cross-laminated timber gave way, and the university brought in outside consulting engineers to determine what went wrong.

The issue was traced to a glitch in the manufacturing process at a mill in Riddle, where preheating of 2-by-6 boards resulted in improper curing of adhesives holding the cross-laminated layers of wood together.

Though the manufacturer fixed the problem, inspectors had to evaluate the CLT panels that had already been installed.

Before the panel failure, the target completion date had already been pushed back to spring of 2019.

Clark said 40 faulty panels have been replaced and another 45 have been identified for replacement.