NEW LIMERICK – More than a year ago, officials from the Louisiana-Pacific plant broke ground on a massive expansion project that will convert the site from oriented strand board production to laminated strand lumber production.

The production of laminated strand lumber is intended to diversify the corporation’s product line while meeting demands for alternative engineered products for home construction.

Construction crews have made significant headway in their quest to expand the facility and introduce the new product line, and LP officials said recently they hope to debut the new line soon.

“We are looking to have sellable product ready by the end of this month or the first of March,” said Skip Cleary, the New Limerick plant manager. “Everyone has been working hard on this, and we are looking forward to completing the project.”

Founded in 1973, LP Corp. is one of the leading manufacturers of premium building products in North America. The company fabricates home-building products at 29 manufacturing plants throughout the United States, Canada and Chile.

The New Limerick plant was established in 1982.

The new laminated strand lumber will be called SolidStart LSL. Once in operation, the New Limerick plant will serve as the exclusive manufacturer of the LP product while becoming one of the few producers of LSL in North America. While LSL is not new, it is a new material for LP.

While oriented strand board is a plywoodlike product made from wafers of wood, LSL is a high-tech engineered wood product that LP officials have said will increase design flexibility and decrease labor costs for builders. Company officials also have said SolidStart LSL will deliver consistency with no warping, waning, twisting or bowing.

Converting the New Limerick site for production of LSL has been in process since September 2006. Cleary said the New Limerick plant underwent a 120-day shutdown while extensive upgrades were made to the OSB section of the plant. New equipment was installed and other changes were made, and the OSB section started up again Jan. 19.

Cleary said crews are going through the “debugging stages” as they work toward producing the new line.

The massive project has led to more than 400 construction workers being on site at a time.