Native Green Grown or NG2 project is a tribal food sovereignty initiative. What is so unique about it is it will use flared gas to generate power and heat for the greenhouse growing operation.

MHA Nation Chairman Mark Fox got the idea when he read an article a few years ago about The Netherlands, its innovative agricultural technology and how it feeds the country. To plan for the MHA Nation greenhouse venture, Fox and a delegation from the tribe made a trip to The Netherlands in March 2019, where they met with the Dutch Ministry and operators of The Netherlands. They also toured food production facilities and commercial greenhouses.

Another trip followed a few months later when Fox and a tribal delegation and architect Randy Lindemann visited Houweling’s greenhouse in Mona, Utah.

Soon the project plans were off to a start.

Submitted Photo Heritage Place Assisted Living Facility, a project of the MHA Nation shown in this architect’s rendering from RML Architects, is anticipated to open this spring in Parshall.

RML Architects of Minneapolis owned by Randy Lindemann, originally from Minot, is the architecture firm for the NG2 project.

Ground breaking to start the construction phase was held at the site near Parshall on April 19, 2021. Earthwork started last fall. Woodstone Inc. of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, is the contractor for the project.

The site is a 40-acre parcel and 38 of the 40 acres are being improved.

The greenhouse project will include climate-controlled greenhouses.

The NG2 project, when all three construction phases are complete, will be 412,000 square feet under glass, according to Lindemann.

Submitted Photo The new MHA Nation Diabetes Education Center, shown in this architect’s rendering from RML Architects, is a project on the campus of the Elbowoods Memorial Health Clinic Campus in New Town.

“It will be one greenhouse built in three phases. The 10 growing chambers will be separate, individual compartments within the single greenhouse structure,” he said.

The project also includes an administrative building, farmstand-style produce sales area and a heating plant to house two combined heat power (CHIP) engines.

Fox said the initiative is one of the keys “to ensuring that we survive, to ensuring our Nation will go into the future, growing our own crops, generating our own power, maximizing our water sources and creating products to export so that when times do get rough, we’ve got a system in place that can really survive any difficulties that might lie ahead.”

Construction of the project is scheduled through September of this year. The first vegetable crop is anticipated to be in November of this year.

RML Architects also is the architectural firm for several other MHA Nation projects in progress or recently completed.

Submitted Photo The new MHA Kidney Dialysis Unit, shown in this architect’s rendering from RML Architects, will be located on the Elbowoods Memorial Health Clinic campus in New Town.

— The MHA Nations Heritage Place Assisted Living Facility in Parshall is a 20-unit “congregate”-style assisted living facility. Four of the studio-style apartments are ADA-accessible living units. The facility also has a large central community commons area, administration, and health, education, and multi-use meeting and activity spaces. The facility is anticipated to open in May.

— The MHA Nation Diabetes Education Center is a project on the Elbowoods Memorial Health Clinic campus in New Town. The center includes patient service and administrative office areas, Diabetes Education Program, and facility support areas.

Lindemann said the center is just about done. A grand opening will be held in the spring.

— The MHA Kidney Dialysis Unit (KDU) will also be located on the Elbowoods Memorial Health Clinic campus. The unit will include administration, patient treatment, staff support, dialysis treatment support and building support areas.

“This project is in design. We will finish design by the end of May, construction in June,” Lindemann said. A grand opening is anticipated for August 2023.

Submitted Photo The MHA Nation – Family Entertainment Center in New Town, shown in this architect’s rendering from RML Architects, is scheduled to be completed later this year.

— The MHA Nation — Family Entertainment Center is being planned for New Town. It will include half-court basketball, virtual reality/golf simulator, laser tag, theater suites, mini-bowling with four lanes, mini-golf course, ropes course, arcade, two party rooms, rock wall and restaurant plus exterior dining. The center is to be completed later this year, with a grand opening anticipated in December.

Off the Fort Berthold Reservation in Bismarck, RML Architects is working on an expansion project of the treatment center at the MHA Nation Good Road Recovery Center. According to RML Architects, the center was completed and the facility opened for service in August 2018. The on-site residential program serves MHA tribal members in need of treatment and recovery for mental health and substance dependence. The facility is operating at full 32 beds capacity and has outgrown the space in the out-patient treatment building, originally sized to accommodate four licensed addiction counselors. The addition and remodeling project will expand the administrative, staff office support areas and group rooms in a new second story addition.

This past summer, on June 24, 2021, the new Healing Hearts Lodge, phase two female transitional housing addition, also a RML Architects project, at the Good Road Recovery Center campus in Bismarck, held its grand opening.