Page 13 - Georgia Forestry - Issue 3 - Summer 2023

Leveraging Working Forests to Connect Our Cities to a Sustainable Future
BTy Olivia Parrott and Matt Hestad
he sights and sounds of cranes and construction crews are ever present in Atlanta as developers build multi-family housing, retail and office buildings to accommodate the booming city in the 11th fastest-growing state in the nation. But
just one building is being constructed with mass timber created in a Georgia working forest.
As tenants put pressure on developers to lower the carbon footprint of their buildings, mass timber is emerging as a leading natural solution. Thanks to the support of several key Georgia Forestry Association members, the Georgia Forestry Foundation (GFF) has launched the Seedlings to Solutions initiative as an effort to help educate the state’s business and political leaders about the benefits of mass timber.
use development with a world-class food hall, retail stores, an entertainment venue, office space and multi-family housing.
“When we originally decided to do a mass timber building, it was all about design — how would it look and feel inside the building,” Harris said. “We have this amazing adaptive re-use building with Ponce City Market that is quirky and fun, but it is hard to make a new building look and feel the same way. In the end, we felt that mass timber allowed us to achieve that same sense of place and authenticity in our Phase 2 expansion with 619 Ponce.”
In 2020, Jamestown announced Ponce City Market’s Phase 2 expansion, which includes 619 Ponce, the state’s first locally grown and manufactured mass timber building. The building will include 87,000 square feet of office space and 27,000 square feet of retail space. Shoppers in stores at 619 Ponce will have the opportunity to see, touch and feel the mass timber panels and beams during store business hours, which is unusual as most mass timber buildings in North America are office or residential buildings that are closed to the public. This offers an opportunity to educate people about the benefits of working forests and the entire mass timber supply chain without leaving Atlanta.
The Right Vision, The Right
This is a watershed moment for the growth of mass timber in Atlanta. It is also a unique opportunity for Georgia’s forestry community. Most mass timber in the U.S. South has been imported from the Pacific Northwest, Canada or Eastern Europe. Some of the wood used at 619 Ponce was planted in 1996 and grown on Jamestown’s land in Lumpkin, GA, sawn into lumber at Georgia-Pacific’s mill in Albany, GA, and manufactured by SmartLam in Dothan, AL. The entire supply chain for the building is under 600 miles, making it truly locally grown and manufactured.
“When we originally priced out the building, it turned out that it would be cheaper to build with mass timber that was imported from Austria, but as a company that owns timberland in Georgia, that just seemed wrong,” Harris said.
Most mass timber buildings in the U.S. South to date have been built using panels and beams that have been sourced from other countries or the Pacific Northwest, due to the matu- rity of the market and manufacturing sector in those areas. 619 Ponce, however, will be a hallmark for sustainable, locally grown construction.
According to WoodWorks, the potential carbon benefit of 619 Ponce is 2,583 metric tons of carbon dioxide stored, which is equivalent to removing 546 cars from the road for a year. With more than two thirds of the state covered in forests, Georgia grows the volume of wood needed for the entire building in under 17 minutes. Most importantly, thanks to the growth of healthy markets for mass timber and other forest products, the land where the trees were harvested by Jamestown will be replanted — and the sustainable cycle begins again.
Place, The Right Leader
Troy Harris, a steadfast Georgia forestry leader, is the managing director of timberland and innovative wood products at Jamestown LP. Jamestown has developed some of the hottest real estate properties in the world, including Chelsea Market and One Times Square in New York, and Ponce City Market in Atlanta. Harris and his team manage the company’s timber fund, which includes a little over 110,000 acres of timberland in the U.S. South and Northeast. Since 2015, Harris has been working behind the scenes to help the company’s leaders understand the connection between the timberland they manage and the potential of engineered mass timber as a pathway to enhance the business and environmental performance of their real estate holdings.
Harris’ years of work to cultivate relationships and drive conversations across the forestry and real estate development communities is bearing fruit, as mass timber columns and beams fall into place like a Lego set at Ponce City Market’s first mixed-use mass timber building, known as 619 Ponce.
Ponce City Market is an iconic Atlanta property that was orig- inally constructed in 1929 as a Sears, Roebuck & Co. warehouse and showroom. Jamestown restored the property as a mixed-
From Seedling to
Mass Timber Solution
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