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VANCOUVER — Four new buildings in B.C. are each receiving $500,000, for a grand total of $2 million, to demonstrate the benefits of mass-timber construction.

The projects were announced at the 2025 International Woodrise Congress, an international event on tall-wood and sustainable construction hosted in Vancouver this year.

The projects were selected through the fourth intake of B.C.’s Mass Timber Demonstration Program (MTDP), which helps local builders, designers and manufacturers advance their use of mass timber technologies, scale up innovative construction practices and improve production capabilities, states a release.

Each project will receive the funding through the province’s Crown corporation Forestry Innovation Investment.

Here are the builds:

• Nexus, a six-storey mass-timber project in Penticton that includes four storeys of office space, a day care and retail space;
• an Indigenous affordable housing project in Surrey that will be an eight-storey tall mass-timber hybrid building that will offer 78 below-market rental units;
• Cube 2.0, a three-storey climbing gym in Nelson that will be an Olympic-level facility; and
• the Ronald McDonald House BC & Yukon’s Willow House, a 12-storey build that will provide 75 units allowing the charity to accommodate twice as many families visiting Children’s Hospital in Vancouver.

The government states information and lessons learned from funded projects will be shared with B.C.’s building industry to expand technical knowledge and capacity within the sector, and to advance the widespread use of mass timber.

“Nexus will be a landmark medical office building at the gateway to the Innovation District in Penticton, co-developed by Stryke Group and Tien Sher,” said Rocky Sethi, managing director, Stryke Group, in a statement. “Our team will harness regionally harvested and manufactured mass timber for efficient and effective construction. Occupants of the space will benefit from the natural, biophilic benefits of mass timber – proven to deliver greater employee health, satisfaction and retention.”

The program now has 24 demonstration buildings and eight research projects.