Oregon just got its tallest mass-timber structure: a 145-foot-tall building constructed to boost Portland’s affordable housing stock.
The 12-story, Holst Architecture-designed property at 522 SW 13th Ave., dubbed Julia West House, officially opened its doors this week, nearly two years after construction began in February 2024 and about two months after the initial residents moved into the supportive housing facility. Nestled into a 5,000-square-foot lot, the tawny structure replaced a single-family residence that the First Presbyterian Church of Portland had owned and operated since the 1980s. But the church sold the property to Community Development Partners in 2024, eager to see it repurposed.
Like other supportive housing options across the country, Julia West House knits affordability — in this case, 90 rental units priced for residents making at most 30% of the area’s median income, or $26,070 for a one-person household in 2025 — together with supportive services for formerly unhoused individuals.
A trio of local nonprofits — the Native American Rehabilitation Association of the Northwest, the Northwest Pilot Project, and the Community for Positive Aging — provide services for the development. Largely, their efforts support elder residents, and those who are Black, Indigenous or other people of color, both groups proportionally overrepresented in Portland's unhoused population.
In Julia West, they offer community support and stability, encompassing “case management targeting social determinants of health in seniors, combating isolation and improving access to benefits that support long-term housing stability,” California- and Oregon-based Community Development Partners said in a statement.
In addition to its social services, the 56,000-square-foot project is record-breaking: The structure's 145 feet in height has nabbed the spot as Oregon’s tallest mass timber tower. For comparison, the world’s tallest mass-timber building sits in Milwaukee, rising 284 feet.
What is mass timber?
Already popular overseas, mass timber has garnered increased attention in the United States over the past decade. The often prefabricated material encompasses glulam beams and cross-laminated timber, among other forms of engineered wood fashioned into columns, beams and panels. Julia West is largely CLT, for which fabricators glue lumber into secure stacks, think a Jenga tower before the game starts, and glulam — sawn lumber adhered in parallel layers — forming structural elements that building professionals praise for sustainability.
Some professionals say mass timber is a greener material than common structural options such as concrete and steel, and that it offers a faster construction time. But not all agree. A study from the Washington, D.C.-based World Resources Institute pointed to the carbon cost of harvesting wood and how it could further deplete the world’s forests.
Still, as the material gains a foothold in the U.S., it’s concentrated in commercial structures and multifamily buildings, like Julia West. Often, that has to do with cost; it’s simply easier to make mass-timber cost effective for bigger buildings because they are purchasing more.
“To grow a modular mass timber single-family market, builders need a robust array of light-duty offerings focused on noncommercial uses, and manufacturers need compelling reasons to invest in developing these products,” wrote Emily Dawson in an article for the International Mass Timber Report.
Project opens amid Portland's affordable housing crisis
Julia West’s timber backbone informed much of its design. In keeping with its lumber skeleton, Holst Architecture said it wove exposed glulam beams and warm wood ceilings throughout the project. In some communal spaces, thin wood baffles mimic the movement of waves.
“From an architectural perspective, there’s a huge benefit to using wood on the interior to provide a connection with nature that’s visible and beautiful, especially for affordable housing,” Holst Architecture project architect Nici Stauffer said in a WoodWorks case study of the project. “We feel strongly about that, in terms of providing beauty, quality, and a better experience for the residents.”
Even as Julia West opens, Portland faces an ongoing affordable housing shortage. Home Forward, the city's public housing authority, cut staff this week in response to a $35 million budget shortfall, even as more than 1,000 affordable units remain unoccupied, according to an analysis from CoStar, the parent company of Homes.com.