WADENA CITY LIBRARY

WADENA, MINNESOTA

With a dated and overcrowded library building, without sufficient site capacity for reuse and expansion, BKV Group led a preliminary feasibility study of multiple sites for adaptive reuse. With the selection of a former bank building more centralized in the City, with higher visibility and site flexibility for future adaptation and growth, the library can offer expanded operations including drive-through book pick-up and drop-off and after-hours rentable space including a community room and maker space.

Some of the main project goals included an enhanced customer experience, dedicated collections and reading areas for children’s, teens, and adults, the accommodation of program functions that were not feasible in the old structure, and exploration of how the building could continue to adapt in the future, including long-term capacity to more than double children’s, provide a dedicated reading garden, and expand meeting and study spaces.

BKV Group’s scope include a detailed collections analysis, stakeholder engagement, conceptual visioning, coordinated design and FF&E services and contract document development, and coordination with the owner’s Construction Manager for pre-construction strategic development.

The new library accommodates growth of all collections, provides separate children’s, teens, and adult collections and reading areas, offers a net increase in overall reading and study areas, a new maker space, a 50-person flexible meeting room, and the ability to execute future Phase II renovation scope with minimal changes to work implemented during this first phase.