The future site of Columbus’ first mass timber high-rise at the corner of North High Street and West Ninth Avenue, where the iconic Bier Stube bar currently stands. Credit: Jolie Austin | Lantern Reporter
Bier Stube, a longtime campus bar that closed in September 2024, will soon give way to Columbus’ first mass-timber high-rise building.
Harbor Bay Ventures, an Illinois-based timber development company, plans to construct the high-rise at the corner of North High Street and West Ninth Avenue. The 13-story building’s wooden structure brings a handful of environmental advantages, though there are still lingering questions about the sustainability of using mass timber in construction.
When constructed, the building will be Harbor Bay’s second major wood-framed structure, according to the company’s website. Three years ago, the company completed a residential mass timber structure called “INTRO” in Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood.
The construction method used in Harbor Bay’s projects aligns with the environmental advantages of mass timber, said Brent Sohngen, a professor of environmental and resource economics in Ohio State’s Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics.
Sohngen said the term “mass timber” refers to smaller pieces of wood glued together to create large structural pieces. Mass timber produces 40% less carbon emissions and 39% less nitrous oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions, according to Harbor Bay’s website.
“Concrete, globally, is actually the biggest emission source of all around the globe,” Sohngen said. “Using wood does that — it helps reduce those net emissions associated with any building.”
Harbor Bay brought its proposal to the University Area Commission in March 2024, though the final design wasn’t approved until April 17, 2024, with a 7-3-1 vote, due to the Commission asking the company to rework the plan without an attached garage.
Seth Golding, University Area Commission treasurer, said he voted against the plans.
“I think [my fellow commissioners] were compelled to support it because of the uniqueness of it, but still, the density and no parking was just, I think, very irresponsible,” Golding said. “When you have projects like this with no parking, a lot of people will be put out, and a lot of people move out.”
The wood for these “unique” mass-timber projects typically does not come from natural forests, Sohngen said. Instead, it is sourced from intensively managed wood plantations. These plantations, which operate like agricultural crops, occupy only a small proportion of global forest areas and leave a smaller environmental footprint.
“These [wood plantations] provide a huge benefit for the atmosphere by sucking enormous amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere on an annual basis,” Sohngen said. “Not only are we getting the gain from avoiding steel and concrete production, but we’re also gaining extra benefits [from] the fact that we have to have a lot of wood on the ground, which means a lot of carbon in the atmosphere in order to produce the wood material.”
Though the environmental benefits of mass timber are clear, Sohngen said its growing popularity could present some economic challenges. One such challenge is an increased demand for trees, which in turn can drive up timber, lumber and construction costs.
Notably, Sohngen said unlike steel or concrete, wood is a renewable resource. This means its supply can be expanded through sustainable forestry practices over time, enabling the United States to meet growing demand while avoiding prolonged price increases.
Though sustainable forestry practices can help balance supply and demand, Sohngen said carefully controlled wood plantations can still pose environmental concerns, such as water pollution, biodiversity loss and pesticides. He said these issues, however, are unlikely to impact Columbus directly.
Despite these environmental concerns, Sohngen said mass-timber buildings are just as safe as steel and concrete structures when it comes to fire and earthquake resistance.
“The architects and engineers need to spend more time sort of providing information to help people understand these sort of safety features of these buildings, that they are safe, that they can be constructed in a way that is of the same structural integrity as a steel infrastructure, concrete infrastructure,” Sohngen said.
