Minneapolis, Minnesota
Collaborative Design Group has provided predesign, programming, planning, and design services for the Northside Partnership, which will join NorthPoint Health & Wellness Center and Hennepin County Human Services together with outside partners to provide better social and health services to the North Minneapolis community. The complex project features numerous components to create an improved facility, including the design of a new building for the Estes Funeral Home in order to relocate the local business across the street, an office build-out in a nearby new development to relocate additional services off of the site, demolition of multiple existing site structures, renovation of the 67,000 sf facility, site and access improvements, and two 50,000 sf additions.
With building needs that include offices for records, financial, administration, and IT departments, as well as spaces for general medicine, optometry, dental, behavioral health, pharmacy, and labs, the project has been an intensive programming exercise. Programming surveys have been used extensively with all departments to get input from staff since they understand their departmental operations better than anyone. CDG and the County have also toured a handful of medical facilities to observe how different spaces and medical service models function.
As a public project that impacts many stakeholders, employees, nearby businesses, and the surrounding community, close collaboration with all stakeholders has been crucial to ensure that everyone’s needs will be met and that programmatic goals are communicated effectively. CDG assists Hennepin County with community meetings to collect input, answer questions, and ease any concerns that the neighborhood may have. Allowing all parties to be heard, voice their opinions, and be active participants during the planning process helps to diminish their concerns over the eventual changes.
