Building History and Use
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.
Why Geothermal?
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.
Design and Construction
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.
Housing, Health, and Clean Energy
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.