FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville is building a 27,000-square-foot storage unit for its library and it will be the first facility in Arkansas to be built with cross-laminated timber panels (CLT). CLT will also be the main component of the university’s 200,000-square-foot Stadium Drive Residence halls on which construction began last fall.

 

Cross-laminated timber is a solid, large scale, prefabricated, engineered wood panel typically made of multiple layers glued to form structural panels with enhanced strength, rigidity, and dimensional stability.

 

Southern Arkansas is rich in yellow pine timber, a prime component of CLT, and according to the School of Forestry & Natural Resources (SFNR) at the University of Arkansas at Monticello, the state grows eight million more tons of pine annually than it harvests.

 

The use of CLT in the university’s construction gives the SFNR hope that CLT use will generate more acceptance within the state and eventually lead to the emergence of a CLT manufacturing facility in Arkansas which would benefit economic growth by allowing the harvest of the state’s yellow pine timber to be processed and turned into laminates.

 

The use of CLT and related laminates has added nearly two percent to the price of the residence hall’s construction and its use in the library construction has saved nearly one million in an $11 million budget according to Mike Johnson, the university’s vice chancellor of facilities.

 

Miller Boskus Lack Architects, the architecture firm for the facility’s construction, has given weekly tours to members of various companies which include developers and architects since the installation of the facility’s first CLT panel in February.

 

Plans for the library storage facility, which was designed by Perry Dean Rogers, includes housing for low-use items, a preservation and conservation area, a digitization and work space area for staff, a maps and microforms storage area, and a climate controlled storage space for the Special Collections’ manuscripts and works of art. Completion for the facility is set for July 2018.

 

The university provides a time-lapse camera for the construction's progress.