History: The NorthPoint Health & Wellness Center (NorthPoint), located at 1313 Penn Avenue N. in Minneapolis, is a comprehensive community health center operated by Hennepin County’s Division of Primary Care and a free standing, Section 330 compliant governing board through a co-application agreement. In 2020, NorthPoint enters its 53rd year as a primary, preventive health care center in the heart of North Minneapolis, Minnesota. It provides a wide range of medical, dental and behavioral health is nationally recognized as an innovative model of integrated health and human services. The campus includes medical, dental, behavioral health, addiction treatment, pharmacy, laboratory, radiology, social services and a food shelf. Recently, NorthPoint has expanded its services to include housing assistance.

In 2019, the NorthPoint campus served over 28,000 patients with over 105,000 clinic visits and over 15,000 clients in the social services programs. From 2010 to 2017, NorthPoint patients increased 27% and patient visits increased 39%. Over 90% of NorthPoint’s patients are from communities of color. According to the U.S. Bureau of Census data reports, the residents of NorthPoint’s primary service areas of zip codes 55411, 55412, 55428, 55429 and 55430 have annual median incomes that are significantly less than residents of Hennepin County as a whole.

While Hennepin County has been providing health care services in this area since 1967, the current clinic facility was built in 1993 and is a 67,000 gross square foot, two story building. The NorthPoint campus expansion project will both expand the current clinic, physically integrating NorthPoint’s services as well as remodeling and refurbishing the existing spaces.

A robust community engagement process began 15 years ago. In 2005, the architecture firm Collaborative Design Group (CDG) was awarded a contract through the Designer Selection Committee. CDG provided a variety of pre-design and feasibility studies, programming, schematic design, design development and construction documents services.

Previous phases were completed at the intersection of Penn and Plymouth. In 2018, a new Estes Funeral Chapel opened its doors on the southwest quadrant of the intersection, allowing physical space for clinic expansion. That same year the county signed a contract for development for a parking ramp that includes office and commercial space, which was completed on the southeast quadrant of the intersection. These projects comprise Phases 1 and 2 of 3-phases, paving the way for the third and final phase of work, the expansion and remodeling of the NorthPoint Health & Wellness Clinic.

In spring of 2019, the Northpoint project was bid through best value and low-bid procurement methods. The bids came in significantly over budget. Challenges included scope and budget misalignment, tariffs on construction materials, tight labor market conditions in the construction industry, and particularly in the medical field.

In order to construct within budget, the project began a re-programming effort, to right-size the project in alignment with the budget. In July of 2019, The Innova Group, a consulting firm specializing in medical operational programming, was hired to guide the reprogramming effort. The project is now in its final stage of its comprehensive redesign effort.

In August of 2019, the international consulting firm AECOM Hunt was hired to work in supportive partnership with the Innova Group during reprogramming. AECOM Hunt has a proven track record with modern medical design and construction. This high level of expertise is required to meet the demands of the complex aspects of expanding and remodeling the medical clinic. After its work in support of the Innova Group, the AECOM Hunt team began leading the architectural, interior design, landscape architecture and mechanical, electrical, civil and structural engineering efforts, providing cost estimating and consulting services to further the redesign effort.

AECOM Hunt developed a design solution that better supports NorthPoint’s service delivery model and incorporates resiliency into the design in a way that was not present previously. Additionally, the AECOM Hunt design incorporates many environmentally friendly and sustainable aspects, which will reduce the facility’s impact on the environment, save energy costs and serve as an example of sustainable design within the north Minneapolis community and Hennepin County. The expanded campus will include a few amenities that are not currently present on the campus; those include drop-in childcare service, a Bistro Café, which will be a social enterprise initiative run by NorthPoint, Inc. and staff wellness spaces.

The project team produced a comprehensive and integrated project delivery/procurement plan to advance disparity reduction through the construction, using the following methods:

1) Hiring goals included in contracts with prime contractors for:
a. residents of the communities proximate to the project site
b. Minority workforce (32%) and female workforce (20%)
c. graduates of local training programs (Workforce Entry Program apprentices)

2) Small business set-aside contractors will be required to employ county probationers.

3) Small Minority- and women-owned business participation goals included in all contracts with prime contractors

4) Collaborating with local community-based organizations to promote diversity of workforce participation

5) Use of new contract compliance software to enhance monitoring of contractors’ compliance with contractual obligations

One general contractor will be selected through a publicly advertised best value process for the predominant portion of the project (the “Core Package”); and county staff and AECOM are exploring ways that other Emerging Small Business Enterprise (ESBE) general contractors could complete additional scopes of work, such as tenant improvements, through the set-aside authority.

The ESBE firms would be participants in the Department of Community Corrections and Rehabilitation’s (DOCCR) Community Productive Day Construction Partnership Program. These small businesses have been pre-qualified for this program by DOCCR based on their demonstrated success employing and training ex-offenders. The selected ESBE firms will be required to employ probationers during the performance of their contract for not less than ten (10) percent of the contract’s total labor hours.

The county has successfully used set-aside contracting authority with ESBE contractors to create employment and on-the-job training opportunities for probationers with the following projects: New Estes Funeral Chapel (4,300 hours); 1256 Penn Avenue Building, Fifth Floor Tenant Improvement (3,030 hours); and Hosmer Library Refurbishment (3,212 hours).

The remaining funding for the NorthPoint Health and Wellness Center, Capital Project 0031735, is $45,242,000. The estimated construction budget for construction of the clinic expansion is approximately $38,200,000. AECOM Hunt’s October 2020 construction estimate came in slightly below budget. The difference between the construction costs and the capital budget include items such as furniture, consulting, moving, equipment, and contingency.

The project team recently completed the design development phase of work and is now in the final stage of redesign, construction documentation. Construction documents for the project are expected to be compete in January of 2021. The project will then be advertised, responses evaluated, and a construction contract awarded. It is estimated that construction start in July of 2021 and will last 28 months.

Current Request: This request is to authorize the County Administrator to award contracts to the responsible low bidders, and/or highest scored Best Value proposers if the bids and/or proposals are within the approved project budget; that the Chair of the Board be authorized to sign the contacts on behalf of the county after the performance and payment bonds have been properly executed; and that the Controller be authorized to disburse funds as directed.

Impacts / Outcomes: NorthPoint Health & Wellness Center delivers services to people in an area where the historic and current racial and health disparities are most significant in Hennepin County. NorthPoint’s work directly improves the social determinants of health of patients and clients every day. Never has NorthPoint Health & Wellness Center’s mission been more profoundly important than it is currently, and this project will optimize operational efficiency while improving community access to quality health and human services.

This project will also increase revenues as NorthPoint will be able to serve more residents that want appointments, but are unable to be seen within a timely manner due to space limitations.

NorthPoint serves as a training site for over 24 health care and academic institutional programs. Requests for student training opportunities, are declined due to space limitations. Without this project, these denied requests will continue to increase annually and represent a loss to Hennepin County and North Minneapolis for future workforce development in a community that has high unemployment and poor high school graduation rates. The ability to recruit and train the next generation of health care workers is an important opportunity provided by this project. Many of these are students of color.