Hennepin County is looking at a shopping mall as a potential home for the Southdale Library, currently in a building scheduled to be leveled later this year.
In the meantime, the final gavel is about to come down in Hennepin County District Court's satellite location in the same Edina building.
With Feb. 1 as the last day for misdemeanor and traffic offenses to be contemplated at the Southdale Courthouse, those cases are being relocated to other courthouses in the county. Hundreds of cases are heard there every week.
The 45-year-old building on York Avenue S. at W. 70th Street is slated for demolition this fall.
A new library will be built — with a tentative opening in 2022 — but the question still on the table is where.
Margo Geffen, the county's facility services director, said Wednesday that options for locating a replacement library include the current site or in the nearby Southdale Center shopping mall.
A state Department of Vehicle Services licensing bureau moved in 2016 from the library building to the mall.
Geffen said the mall's operators would benefit by the 300,000 or so annual library visits, while being in the shopping center offers "our patrons to do many things in one place."
