CLT research mentioned in reports on new tenant of Millinocket’s former mill

Mainebiz and Maine Public mentioned the University of Maine in reports of a new tenant at the site of Millinocket’s shuttered paper mill. LignaCLT Maine LLC announced it is expecting to bring 100 jobs to the Katahdin region in the next five years. LignaCLT Maine will build a 300,000-square-foot manufacturing plant on the site now owned by Our Katahdin LLC, becoming the state’s first cross-laminated timber manufacturer, Mainebiz reported. The North Carolina-based company and Our Katahdin were introduced by UMaine, which last fall got a $455,532 grant to research the use of Maine-sourced timber for composites that are used in place of steel and concrete in construction, according to the article. UMaine’s focus is to advance new forest products technologies and bring innovative mass timber manufacturing to Maine, the article states. According to Maine Public, some of the company’s new employees could come from UMaine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center, where the benefits of wood laminate construction have been researched for years. One of LignaCLT Maine’s founding partners told Maine Public the campuses at Husson University and UMaine offer tremendous opportunities for future cooperation.