Construction is slated to begin next year on a five-story expansion of Mayo Clinic’s archival facility where it stores its “Tissue Registry” of patient samples in northwest Rochester, according to the Rochester Post Bulletin.

The proposed plan is to build a 67,760-square-foot building in two phases next to an existing 48-year-old facility and connect the two buildings.

The tissue registry is an archival facility where biological specimens are stored on behalf of patients in case additional testing is requested by the patient or his/her health care team. Mayo says it needs a larger facility because it keeps tissue specimens indefinitely, “so that they may be of use to Mayo Clinic patients, their families and the patients’ health care providers,” if or when needed.

This is one of several expansion developments taking place in Rochester, where a $5.6 billion public-private development project called the Destination Medical Center Project  is underway. See this just-published, extensive report from Twin Cities Business for a look at how the project is not only expanding Mayo Clinic, but reinventing Rochester’s downtown.