Page 28 - Georgia Forestry - Issue 1 - Winter 2024

TELLING FORESTRY’S
STORY
The Georgia Forestry Foundation, Jamestown LP and Georgia-Pacific Gather Leaders to Celebrate Georgia’s Future from Seedlings to Solutions
the Georgia Forestry Foundation.
“Part of what you are doing tonight as we watch this project emerge is making it clear that we don’t have to choose between the economy and the environment,” said Senator Warnock. “That, in a real sense, as we move forward and think about a future and a world that will be here for all our children, we need solutions that understand the connection between eco-
nomic and ecological sustainability.”
MAXIMIZING THE ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS OF WOOD
What Jamestown first learned when they set out to construct a mass timber building next door to their popular Ponce City Market property in Atlanta is that they would need to go to Europe to source the most cost- effective timber and manufacturing. But, as an owner and manager of timberland in the state, that answer wasn’t good enough. They wanted to maximize the environmental and economic benefits of using wood by sourcing it locally.
“Just a few years ago, we set out to do something that was truly local — farm to table, seedlings to solutions — that was really going to take advantage of what we have here in the region,” said Bronfman.
Bronfman referred to Georgia’s status as the number-one forestry state in the nation. Georgia has an abundant supply of available timber that can be locally sourced for mass-timber construction projects. Thanks to modern forest man- agement and healthy markets for forest products, forested land in Georgia remains a valuable real estate asset, with growth exceeding harvests by 48% statewide.
Mass timber utilization models using U.S. Forest Service data show that forest growth would still exceed removals by 18% in scenarios using the highest projected estimate of mass timber construction and the lowest estimate for projected forest growth. Using current data from the Georgia Forestry Commission, the state grows a building the size of 619 Ponce every 16 minutes.
Wood used for 619 Ponce was planted in 1996 and grown on Jamestown’s land in Lumpkin, GA. It was then sawn into lum- ber at Georgia-Pacific’s mill in Albany, GA, and manufactured into mass timber by SmartLam in Dothan, AL. The entire
COURTESY OF GEORGIA FORESTRY ASSOCIATION
On Nov. 2, 2023, over 100 business and political leaders — including U.S. Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock and several CEOs from the largest forestry companies in the U.S. — gathered on the second floor of 619 Ponce to learn about Georgia’s first locally grown and manufactured mass timber building. The event was an important
effort to highlight the strength of Georgia’s forests in meeting the needs of our society today and into the future.
The celebration of the building’s sustainability story featured Matt Bronfman, principal and CEO of Jamestown; Troy Harris, managing director of timberland and innovative wood products at Jamestown; Senator Warnock; John Mulcahy, VP of sustainability at Georgia-Pacific; and Andres Villegas, president and CEO of
26 | GEORGIA FORESTRY
By Olivia Parrott