The five-story 1 De Haro in S.F. is the West Coast’s first multistory cross-laminated timber building.

For nearly a decade cross-laminated timber — a layered, wooden building material billed as “the concrete of the future” — has been widely used and celebrated across Europe and Canada for its low carbon footprint and handsome woodsy grain.

It took a while, but finally San Franciscans can see what the fuss is about.

In the city’s design-heavy Showplace Square district, developer SKS Partners is putting the final touches on 1 De Haro, a 134,000-square-foot, five-story building that will become headquarters for Samsara, a hardware and cloud-based software company that helps fleets track mileage and other performance indicators.

While the neighborhood’s light industrial zoning required that the building’s lower floor be concrete, the rest of the structure is made of timber harvested from Forest Stewardship Council-certified black spruce forests in northern Quebec.

The cross-laminated timber panels that ended up at 1 De Haro consist of multiple layers of kiln-dried lumber boards stacked together with adhesives. The wood was then fabricated into precise components — think erector set — before being transported to Stockton by rail, and trucked over the Altamont Pass to San Francisco.

The material generates very little waste on-site, and is also fire-resistant and performs well in earthquakes. In addition to being more sustainable than steel or concrete — both of which emit a lot of carbon dioxide during their manufacturing — CLT is faster to build with because each panel is prefabricated with precision using advanced manufacturing technology.

The sleek glass, steel and concrete exterior of a new building at 1 De Haro contrasts with the soft wood in the interior.

Daniel Kingsley, a partner with SKS, said using CLT was a bit more expensive than concrete but that the speed, green qualities and aesthetics made it well worth it. He said moving from concrete to mass timber reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 1,800 metric tons, the equivalent of 530 cars a year being taken off the road.

“We decided this was a risk worth taking,” said Kingsley. “It’s better for the environment and we felt it would be better for the tenants.”

While the building’s curtain wall exterior is similar to other new, tech-oriented buildings in the neighborhood, at dusk you can see the blonde spruce ceilings and beams glowing through the glass skin.

“That is a a cool thing about mass timber — the character changes based on where you are sourcing your wood from,” said Matt Covall, architect with Perkins + Will, which designed the building.

While the building is the first multistory “CLT” structure on the West Coast, it definitely won’t be the last. Another five-story mixed-use CLT building is under construction in Los Angeles and Perkins + Will, the architect on 1 De Haro, has future projects in South San Francisco and Tahoe.

The interior of 1 De Haro.

Two San Francisco CLT projects — an academic building at the California College of the Arts and a community center at the Sunnydale public housing complex — recently won grants through Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Mass Timber Building Competition, a contest put on by the state Forest Management Task Force.

In Los Angeles, Shawmut Design and Construction is about six months from completing a five-story CLT creative office building at 843 N. Spring St., near Dodgers Stadium. Greg Skalaski, who heads up Shawmut’s West Coast operations, said the project is getting a lot of interest from other L.A. builders, although he thinks CLT will mostly be applied to high-end boutique commercial and residential buildings.

“The warmth of the wood creates a very different feel than a standard office space,” he said. “If you are looking to fill that creative office space need — the type of project that typically attracts the highest rents of the world — it is perfect.”

But Skalaski said he doubts that Californians will see CLT in typical middle-market or affordable multifamily housing construction.

“The housing crisis is not going to be solved by building really cool spaces,” he said. “We have to get to an efficient manner of building for every day folks. Traditional concrete podium construction is still a very efficient way to do that.”

Cross-laminated timber in the new building at 1 De Haro in San Francisco warms the interior. The sustainable wood is fire-resistant and does well in earthquakes.

Ross Edwards, CEO of the San Francisco contractor Build Group, said his company is in talks with a developer interested in doing a “high-end” 15-story residential CLT project in San Jose. While the estimates have yet to be finalized, he said it will likely cost 20% more than a traditional concrete building.

“We will see at the end of the day if it pencils or not,” he said. “CLT is trendy right now because it’s sustainable but how much of that is real and how much is a publicity stunt? I’m somewhat of a skeptic because I don’t think things are greener that cost more.”

Edwards questions whether energy and money going into CLT might be better used making existing construction practices more sustainable. “Is it really going to be a benefit at this point or should we target more investment into helping the concrete industry get greener?”

A new report from Grand View Research says the CLT market will grow 13.6% a year over the next seven years, reaching $2.7 billion by 2028. But that growth is likely to come in fits and starts as the industry matures. Already one prominent Silicon Valley company, Katerra, went bankrupt after building a CLT manufacturing facility in Spokane, Wash. That factory was recently acquired by a Canadian company for $50 million.

The interior of 1 De Haro.

One De Haro architect Peter Pfau of Perkins + Will said the United States CLT industry will be bolstered as new production facilities come online, which will allow West Coast projects to use locally sourced wood. Pfau said tenants are attracted to its “biophilic” qualities — a concept used in the building industry to increase occupant’s connection to the natural environment. Three different tenants competed to take all of the 1 De Haro building.

“The beauty of CLT is a market advantage,” said Pfau. “People just really love the look of it. There is quite a difference between walking into a room with all this beautiful wood and a typical concrete office building.”

For years San Francisco office tenants have been attracted to historic brick and timber buildings, and developers have sought to replicate that feel by adding reclaimed lumber and brick.

“You go back 100 years they were building brick and timber buildings in the South of Market,” said Kingsley. “Back then you cut down a redwood tree and made a column out of it, you made a girder out of it. It wasn’t all laminated together — but it was the same idea.”

J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfjkdineen

J.K. Dineen covers housing and real estate development. He joined The Chronicle in 2014 covering San Francisco land use politics for the City Hall team. He has since expanded his focus to explore housing and development issues throughout Northern California. He is the author of two books: "Here Tomorrow" (Heyday, 2013) and "High Spirits" (Heyday, 2015).