ST. THOMAS, Ontario — Element5, a North American leader in the design, fabrication, and assembly of mass timber buildings, officially opened a new state-of-the-art Glulam production line and expansion to its manufacturing facility in St. Thomas, Ontario.

As part of the government’s plan to build a more resilient forestry sector, Ontario Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade Vic Fedeli announced that Ontario is providing $8 million in funding through the Invest Ontario fund towards the $107 million expansion.

Element5’s growth is reinforced by a strategic investment from parent company, the HASSLACHER group, one of Europe’s largest and timber producers, as well as by partnerships with federal and provincial governments.

“This expansion represents a bold step forward for Element5, our partners, and the mass timber industry in Canada,” said Chris Latour, president of Element5. “We are proud to provide innovative, sustainable building solutions that help address Canada’s urgent need for affordable, climate-friendly housing and infrastructure. With our expanded operations, we are even better positioned to support communities across Ontario and North America.”

The expansion marks a significant milestone in Element5’s remarkable growth and in Canada’s rapidly growing advanced wood construction sector. The company is Ontario’s first certified manufacturer of cross-laminated timber, and the expansion more than doubles the size of the plant from 130,000 square feet to over 350,000 square feet.

The expansion also doubles the facility’s production capacity from 50,000 cubic meters annually to 100,000 cubic meters annually of cross-laminated timber (CLT) and glued-laminated timber (Glulam) products.

Expansion details
Built with a striking combination of structural steel and mass timber, the expansion adds a new state-of-the-art Glulam line to the existing CLT line (Glulam is used for large beams and columns, while CLT is used for floors, roofs, and walls).

• Giant “fishbelly” Glulam beams featured in the Canopy shipping area are 80ft long and 9ft deep, and come from Element5‘s parent company, the HASSLACHER group in Austria.
• To support the expanded production, additional wood drying systems were added (used to keep the moisture content in the wood level to prevent warping and shrinking).
• A new 57,000 square foot building was built adjacent to the main building to house a lumber sorting line equipped with multi-sensor quality scanner called “Goldeneye” by MiCROTEC.

Completing the expansion is two-story, 18,000 square foot front office, using CLT produced by Element5. In total, 602 cubic meters of Glulam and 229 cubic meters of CLT were produced by HASSLACHER and Element5. This mass timber used on the project, sequesters and stores the equivalent of 625 tons of CO₂ from the atmosphere.

When the St. Thomas facility first opened in 2020, it stood on a greenfield site with just 15 employees. Less than five years later, the workforce has grown to 175 highly skilled professionals. The support from Invest Ontario will create an additional 150 jobs, growing the company’s workforce to over 325 employees.

Founded in 2015, Element5 has delivered more than 300 projects across Canada and the United States. Its portfolio includes student residences, luxury condominiums in New York City, arts centres on the East Coast, as well as offices, firehalls, Indigenous community projects, libraries, and multi-residential housing developments throughout Ontario. Most notably, the company has carved out a leading role in affordable housing.

Affordable housing solutions
Element5 has developed a flexible, mass-timber design for multi-unit housing that reduces costs, shortens construction timelines, improves quality, and cuts carbon emissions — all while creating warm, welcoming spaces that support occupant well-being.

To date, Element5 has completed ten affordable housing projects with another ten currently under construction or in development. At a time when the construction sector faces labour shortages, supply chain disruptions, and escalating complexity, prefabricated mass timber offers a scalable, sustainable solution to Canada’s urgent need for affordable housing.

“Ontario’s forestry and wood manufacturing sectors support tens of thousands of jobs across the province,” said Vic Fedeli, Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation, and Trade. “As our government delivers on our plan to protect Ontario, Element5’s expansion will create over a hundred new jobs and bolster the province’s wood manufacturing supply chain, increasing the forestry sector’s competitiveness and unlocking new opportunities for workers, builders and homeowners.”