Crews from general contractor Walter Daniels recently installed a cross-laminated timber deck for a 19,000-sq-ft McDonald’s restaurant in Chicago. The work marked the first use of CLT as a structural material in a Chicago commercial building and one of the most extensive uses of wood in a commercial building since the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
The single-story building was designed by Carol Ross Barney, founder and principal of the local Ross Barney Architects. “Carol has been looking for an opportunity to use [CLT], and when this project came along and we started looking at the possibilities, one of the first meetings we decided to have with the City of Chicago Buildings Dept. [was] to look at whether they would allow us to use the wood deck,” says Chantelle Brewer, RBA’s senior project manager.