Frana Companies

Frana Companies has been building apartments out of Hopkins, Minnesota, since 1977. The general contractor started as a family-owned business under Gary Frana and made multifamily housing its specialty, both privately financed and government-funded. By the firm’s own count it has delivered more than 40,000 multifamily units worth over $5.3 billion in construction volume across the Upper Midwest. It also runs a manufacturing arm. Frana was general contractor on the Landmark Tower Office-to-Residential Conversion in Saint Paul, where a 25-story downtown office building became 187 apartments for developer Sherman Associates. Architect BKV Group names Frana on its project page. Conversions like this one aren’t the contractor’s usual ground-up job.

Two things set Frana apart from a general contractor that simply builds apartments, and neither appears above.

The first is that it manufactures its own structural panels. A wall manufacturing plant opened in 2002 and a floor plant followed in 2006. For a repeat apartment builder that changes the arithmetic of a schedule: panels are produced to drawing indoors while the site is still being prepared, so framing becomes an assembly operation rather than a weather-dependent one. In a Minnesota winter that is not a small advantage, and it explains how a contractor of Frana’s size has pushed through the volume it reports.

The second is the energy standards it builds to. The company lists LEED project experience, recognition from the Passive House Institute US, 2020 Enterprise Green Communities, and compliance with SB2030 and the B3 Guidelines. The last two are the ones that matter most locally – both are Minnesota frameworks that attach to publicly funded and state-assisted buildings, and the second of them governs how energy performance is tracked after a building opens rather than just how it was designed. A contractor that has worked inside those requirements before is a different proposition on an affordable housing deal than one learning them on the job.

Design-build sits alongside construction management in the services list, so Frana can be engaged either as the builder on someone else’s drawings or earlier, with design responsibility attached.

On safety and retention the company makes two specific claims: an OSHA gold standard fall protection program, and employee retention it describes as unmatched. Fall protection is the right thing to single out in multifamily work, where most of the serious exposure is at floor edges and stair openings during framing. The company also states that its entire volume comes from repeat clients, which is the sort of figure worth asking about directly, since it implies very little competitive bidding.

The office is at 633 Second Avenue South in Hopkins, on 952-935-8600.