Back in 2019, when Columbia Property Trust was mulling how to increase the height of its existing 90-ft, seven-story, concrete-framed office building at 80 M St. SE in Washington, D.C., it chose a mass timber frame over a steel frame for an addition atop the oldest high-rise in the Navy Yard neighborhood. That was a ground-breaking choice. It would mean that the facility would be D.C.’s first mass timber commercial office building.