The Native American Community Clinic (NACC) has served the urban Native American community of the Twin Cities since 2003. As a Federally Qualified Health Center located along the American Indian Cultural Corridor on East Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis, NACC provides a full range of culturally centered healthcare services, including medical, behavioral health, dental, and substance use treatment, regardless of a patient’s ability to pay. The clinic currently serves more than 5,000 patients annually.
For years, NACC’s ambitions outpaced its facilities. The existing clinic building could not support the expanded services or patient volumes the community needed. The new development addresses that constraint directly by delivering a six-story, mixed-use building at 1213 East Franklin Avenue that brings a rebuilt, expanded 30,000-square-foot health center to the ground floor and 83 units of deeply affordable rental housing above it under the name Wihinaphe Apartments. Wihinaphe means “New Beginnings.”
With the expanded facility, NACC expects to serve an additional 3,000 patients per year. The housing, reserved for households earning between 30–60% of area median income, adds deeply affordable units to one of Minneapolis’s most significant cultural corridors. The project was developed by NACC and Wellington Management, with support from the City of Minneapolis, Hennepin County, UnitedHealth Group, the Greater Minnesota Housing Fund, Minnesota Greenbank financing, and Xcel Energy rebates for the rooftop solar installation.
From the beginning, the project was designed to reach close to net-zero carbon emissions, which required combining geothermal heating and cooling with rooftop solar generation. For a building serving a community with acute health needs, the long-term operating cost stability of a geothermal system also carries practical importance, as lower and more predictable energy costs free up resources that can be directed toward care and services.
Darcy was selected to install the geothermal system. The groundwater-enabled approach was well-suited to the urban site on Franklin Avenue, where space for a conventional closed-loop wellfield does not exist. Two wells access the aquifer beneath the site, providing stable, efficient thermal energy year-round with a minimal above-grade footprint. The geothermal plant is integrated with the building’s mechanical systems across both the residential and clinic portions of the development.
The building is a six-story structure of poured concrete foundation and post-tensioned concrete for the lower levels, transitioning to wood-frame construction for the upper residential floors. The geothermal system is integrated into the building’s mechanical design to serve both the clinic and the residential units above, with the two-well Darcy system anchoring the thermal plant.
The project drew on Minnesota Greenbank financing through the Greater Minnesota Housing Fund, consistent with the approach used at The Heights development in St. Paul, helping to make the additional cost of geothermal and solar systems feasible within the development’s affordable housing financing structure. Xcel Energy also contributed energy upgrade rebates for the rooftop solar component.
The development groundbreaking took place in April 2025, and residents began moving into the Wihinaphe Apartments in September 2026.
The Native American Community Clinic and Wihinaphe Apartments represent what is possible when affordable housing, community healthcare, and sustainable building systems are designed together rather than treated as separate objectives. For NACC and the community it serves, the new campus is a long-term infrastructure investment in health, housing stability, and cultural continuity along the Franklin Avenue corridor.
For Darcy, this project reflects a core conviction that geothermal heating and cooling belongs in every kind of building, including those serving communities where the stakes of getting infrastructure right are highest.
For more than a century, Mayo Clinic Health System has been the anchor of healthcare for La Crosse and the surrounding 7 Rivers Region. Over time, the existing inpatient facilities on campus fell out of step with the demands of modern medicine, specifically in terms of patient expectations, care delivery models, and long-term operational efficiency.
The response was the La Crosse Hospital Bed Tower: a purpose-built inpatient facility designed not just to replace aging infrastructure, but to represent what the next century of regional healthcare could look like. Completed in 2024, the tower stands six stories above grade with an additional below-grade level and mechanical penthouse, delivering nearly 300,000 square feet of modern inpatient space. It is currently the largest construction project in the system’s regional history.
The goal extended beyond capacity. This was an opportunity to modernize care delivery, improve patient and staff experience, and invest in a facility built to perform well into the future, keeping high-quality care close to home for the communities Mayo Clinic Health System serves.
From the earliest stages of planning, the Bed Tower was envisioned as a long-term healthcare asset that balanced clinical performance with environmental responsibility. The design team focused on reducing energy demand at the building scale through efficient massing, durable construction, and integrated systems, prioritizing solutions that would support patient comfort and reliability while lowering operational impact over the life of the building.
A Darcy groundwater geothermal heating and cooling system was selected to serve the tower, leveraging stable subsurface temperatures to deliver efficient, low-carbon conditioning year-round. Paired with advanced lighting, building controls, and chilled beam technology, the approach significantly reduces energy use compared to conventional hospital systems, aligning the Bed Tower with Mayo Clinic Health System’s broader sustainability goals while supporting resilient, cost-effective healthcare operations. The system’s compact footprint was also a practical advantage. Requiring significantly fewer wells than a traditional closed-loop approach, the Darcy system fit the constraints of an active hospital campus without disrupting patient care or clinical operations during construction.
Designing and building within an operating hospital campus introduced a layer of complexity that demanded close coordination from the start. Clinical teams, facilities managers, and construction partners worked in continuous alignment to ensure uninterrupted patient care throughout the project, which was a non-negotiable priority given the nature of the facility.
Construction officially began in 2022 following extensive site preparation and utility coordination. Throughout the build, Darcy’s geology and installation teams worked within the constraints of the active campus, sequencing the well installation to minimize site disruption while meeting project milestones. By 2024, the tower was complete and operational. IMEG led design and project management for the project. For additional information on the design process, please visit the IMEG project page.
The La Crosse Hospital Bed Tower is more than a replacement facility. It is a strategic investment in resilient, responsible healthcare infrastructure for an entire region.
By combining a high-performance geothermal system with thoughtful planning and long-term adaptability, Mayo Clinic Health System has created a building that supports exceptional patient care while reducing environmental impact and operational cost. The flexible spaces built into the tower are designed to evolve alongside care delivery models, ensuring the facility remains relevant and effective well into the future. As healthcare continues to evolve, the Bed Tower stands as a model for how high-performance, geothermal-enabled design can strengthen community hospitals and serve patients for generations to come.
