Building History and Use
Founded in 1871, Lakewood Cemetery is one of Minneapolis’s most storied landmarks. Situated on 250 acres in southwest Minneapolis between Lake Harriet and Bde Maka Ska, the cemetery is the final resting place of more than 200,000 individuals, including governors, senators, business leaders, philanthropists, and celebrated artists. Among them are U.S. Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey and Senator Paul Wellstone. The cemetery welcomes more than 100,000 visitors each year and has long served as a place of quiet reflection, cultural memory, and community connection in the heart of the city.
For much of its history, Lakewood lacked a dedicated facility to welcome visitors, host community events, and serve families making memorial arrangements in a space designed for that purpose. Planning for a new Welcome Center began as the cemetery marked its 150th anniversary, with a vision that went beyond a functional office building. The new center was designed to serve as a community hub, an educational venue, a place for events and programming, and a model of environmental responsibility befitting an institution that thinks in generations.
Ground broke in August 2022. The project was completed in March 2024, with a ribbon cutting and public grand opening celebrated in May of that year. The two-story, 25,000-square-foot building sits at the entrance of the cemetery at West 36th Street and Hennepin Avenue, designed by Snow Kreilich Architects in collaboration with Miller Dunwiddie and Ten x Ten Landscape Architecture, with JE Dunn Construction as construction manager and MBJ Engineering providing structural solutions.
Why Geothermal?
From the start, Lakewood Cemetery leadership was clear about their sustainability ambitions and their desire to demonstrate environmental stewardship. The Welcome Center was designed to achieve net-zero energy ready status, meaning it was built to produce as much energy as it consumes over the course of a year through the combination of a high-performance building envelope, rooftop solar, and a high-efficiency geothermal mechanical system. Darcy’s two-well groundwater system was selected as the thermal cornerstone of that strategy.
“Geothermal, as part of a net-zero energy building, is part of a broader sustainability strategy that includes preserving our urban tree canopy and moving toward more sustainable landscaping,” said Lakewood President Chris Makowske. “The design teams we worked with recommended geothermal, among other strategies, to help us achieve the net-zero energy goal for the building.”
The compact Darcy well configuration also preserved ground space for future memorialization, addressing a constraint unique to the cemetery context. A conventional geothermal wellfield would have consumed a much larger footprint across Lakewood’s grounds, limiting future options for the families the cemetery serves.
“Using the Darcy well system also helped us preserve precious space that can be used for memorialization in the future,” Makowske said. “Traditional wells would have taken up a much broader field and limited future memorialization options for those we serve.”
The project is also taking advantage of the Federal Renewable Energy Tax Credit available through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, improving the long-term financial case for the installation.
Design and Construction
The two 12-inch diameter wells are integrated with a central heat pump system to provide consistent thermal comfort throughout the building across all seasons. The system works in tandem with the building’s rooftop solar array and high-performance envelope to carry the Welcome Center toward its net-zero energy certification.
Seven acres of sitework and landscaping improvements accompanied the building construction, including new garden areas, a half-mile walking trail, and an elliptical bog garden with a tamarack planting that connects the building to the cemetery’s natural landscape. Construction was carefully phased around ongoing cemetery operations and community events throughout the build, minimizing disruption to the families and visitors the cemetery serves year-round.
Built for Generations
Lakewood Cemetery has always operated with a long time horizon in mind. An institution that has served the Minneapolis community for more than 150 years and plans to do so for generations more approaches every major decision with durability, stewardship, and long-term value as the primary measures of success.
The Welcome Center embodies those values. Sustainable by design, welcoming by purpose, and built to serve the living as much as to honor those who have passed, it reflects what Makowske described as a desire to change the narrative around what a cemetery can be.
“We want a place like Lakewood to be able to do that — to be a place of remembrance,” Makowske said.
For Darcy, the Lakewood project is a reminder that geothermal belongs in every kind of building, including the ones that ask the most profound questions about time, legacy, and what it means to care for a place.