Library will close for several months beginning Sept. 18
Nancy Wisser manages the Burnhaven Library, where she began working shortly after it opened in 1974. Photo by Rick Orndorf
Burnhaven in Burnsville to get $1.55 million makeover
by John Gessner
Thisweek Newspapers
Burnhaven Library in Burnsville had 326,423 visitors last year.
Beginning Sept. 18, Burnhaven users will have to make other plans.
The library, located at 1101 W. County Road 42, will close for remodeling until late April of next year.
“There will be a lot of people who will be missing us, I’m afraid,” said Nancy Wisser, a Dakota County library manager who oversees the locations in Burnsville, Rosemount and Hastings.
The Burnsville project, estimated at $1.55 million, will include a computer lab, a redesigned front entry, a new meeting room, energy-saving upgrades and improvements to the areas for teens and children.
It also includes a new home for the Burnsville License Center. The center will leave its rented space near Cub Foods at 284 E. Travelers Trail in the Heart of the City.
Burnhaven is the oldest library building in the county system, Wisser said. Built in 1973, it’s the first county building erected outside the county seat of Hastings, according to Steve Saienga, the remodeling project manager.
Wisser, who started working at Burnhaven in 1974, was around for a previous remodeling that closed the building for part of 1994 and 1995.
That project included a total interior makeover and a library takeover of space that had been used by public-health nurses.
“It was just a really refreshed building,” Wisser said.
The new project will include added insulation and replacement of the block interior walls with sheetrock. The improvements should cut energy use by more than half, Saienga said.
The county received a $101,000 federal Energy Efficiency Block Grant for the project, he said.
The library will get a new meeting room. The license center will move into the current meeting space just off the main entry.
The addition of the license center accounts for most of what will be a 2,000-square-foot addition to the 23,000-square-foot building, Saienga said.
The county bookmobile, now stored at Burnhaven, will be relocated to the county’s transportation building in Rosemount, freeing up more room for functions such as book sorting, Saienga said.
The project includes a 12-computer lab that will be open to the public when it’s not being used for computer classes, Wisser said.
The library now teaches its popular computer classes by setting up a dozen laptops in the meeting room, she said. The library has 19 computers for public use.
“We have really heavy use of computers in our buildings,” she said. “An additional 12 computers will be a real help for us and the public.”
The library’s small children’s area will be upgraded with a multitiered platform where kids can read by themselves or with their parents, Saienga said.
An area for teens only is being added, he said.
A drive-up book drop will be added. The library will also get three more automated drop-off bins, bringing the total to five.
“That doesn’t mean a lot to the public, but it means a lot to the staff,” Wisser said. “It will be more efficient for our use.”
A new central service desk will bring reference librarians, children’s librarians and checkout staffers into one general location, which will be more efficient for library users, Wisser said.
The Burnhaven remodeling follows similar library projects in Eagan and
West St. Paul, she said.
For more information on other Dakota County library locations, including in neighboring Eagan and Apple Valley, visit www.dakotacounty.us/library. There is also a Scott County library in Savage.
John Gessner is at burnsville.thisweek@ecm-inc.com.
