Crow Holdings plans wooden office building in Frisco

The planned Southstone Yards mixed-use development in Frisco is getting an anchor — and it’ll be made out of wood.

Crow Holdings Development has released plans for a 235,000-square-foot mass timber office building, REBusiness Online reported Tuesday. The Offices at Southstone Yards will serve as the anchor for the company’s future Southstone Yards, a mixed-use development valued at $850 million.

Southstone Yards will span 45 acres along State Highway 121 — just south of the Stonebriar neighborhood. Upon completion, the development will include over 1 million square feet of office space, plus shops, restaurants, hotels, and nine acres of green space. The project also has plans for residential space, including a five-story, 355-unit property that North Carolina-based LMC is developing.

The Offices at Southstone Yards would be among the largest mass timber office buildings in the country, according to the Dallas Business Journal.

Mass timber construction is more sustainable than traditional building materials like steel and concrete — which both create huge amounts of greenhouse gas during production — according to CHD. Timber “provides greater design flexibility, results in a lighter environmental footprint, offers higher thermal insulation,” the company said in its statement announcing the project.

The increased energy efficiency and reduced carbon footprint of the office building can help future tenants “achieve their company’s ESG-related objectives,” said CHD executive Cody Armbrister.

CHD has more than $6 billion of new projects that are expected to break ground in 2022, says REBusiness. The firm recently secured permit approval for the newest addition to its nearby Old Parkland office campus in Dallas that is slated to open in mid-2024.

Mass timber — which involves wooden components cross-laminated in a process similar to making plywood — is touted as more sustainable than steel and concrete, and as a climate solution in a sector that accounts for an estimated 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally. It also can speed up construction timelines because many of its components are prefabricated.

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