In 2015, Minneapolis unveiled plans for a 7-story office building in the North Loop section of the city. There was little remarkable about the announcement — except the primary building material: timber.

Now, officials in Portland have kicked things up a notch, so to speak, by approving an all-wood, 12-story building in the city’s Pearl District. According to the Associated Press, the building, called Framework, will be the first wood-framed high-rise in the U.S., with workers breaking ground this fall. ... “The building permit for Framework was approved following completion of a stringent Performance-Based Review process that included a series of fire, acoustic and structural tests and oversight by an expert peer review team,” according to an announcement about the project from Framework Project, LLC.