Minneapolis Weighs 1914 Carnegie Library as NY Tech Park Adds Lab

Municipal planners and private developers in Minnesota and upstate New York are navigating how to modernize aging early-20th-century civic buildings and vacant industrial parks, as Hennepin County weighs the future of Minneapolis's 112-year-old Franklin Carnegie Library and a team of pharmaceutical veterans converts a former medical-device plant at Glens Falls Tech Park into an automated contract testing laboratory, according to November 8, 2026 reports by Zach White and Renee Broussard for Hoodline and Hoodline Albany.

Minneapolis's 1914 Franklin Carnegie Library and Community Preservation

In Minneapolis, Hennepin County Library officials have begun early planning under a 10-year capital master plan to relocate branch operations out of the historic Franklin Library at 1314 E. Franklin Ave. into a new, modern facility. Opened in 1914, the 112-year-old Beaux-Arts building is the oldest of 4 surviving Minneapolis library branches funded by industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who financed more than 1,600 public libraries across the United States.

Located along the American Indian Cultural Corridor, Franklin Library established its dedicated American Indian collection in the 1960s, became part of the 41-library Hennepin County system when city and county libraries merged in 2008, and underwent $1 million in interior modifications in 2019 designed with architect Paul Mellblom. Patrons and neighborhood residents—including Tony Gatz, Myron Thingvold, and Mike Hogan—told local reporters that the branch serves as a vital educational and cultural anchor.

Hennepin County Commissioner Angela Conley has voiced support for transferring ownership of the 1914 landmark directly to the American Indian community if library services move to a newly constructed building nearby. County officials noted that while the nearby historic Hosmer Library recently completed a $4.4 million renovation, aging infrastructure can require far larger investments, pointing to suburban Southdale Library, which closed on January 6, 2025 for a $107 million, 3-year teardown and rebuild after earlier capital delays in 2015, 2020, and 2023.

Automated Pharmaceutical Testing Lab Launches at 8 Glens Falls Tech Park

Meanwhile in Warren County, New York, 3 co-founders bringing nearly 40 years of combined pharmaceutical industry experience are retrofitting an existing industrial space at 8 Glens Falls Tech Park—part of the former Angio medical-device manufacturing complex in Glens Falls—into a regulated contract pharmaceutical testing laboratory.

Equipped with robotic sample-handling and analytical automation to verify drug purity, stability, and regulatory compliance for pharmaceutical manufacturers, the startup plans to create 20 to 30 specialized jobs over its first 2 to 3 years of operation. Economic development officials noted that the Glens Falls laboratory adds to an expanding upstate New York life-sciences corridor anchored by biotechnology leader Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, which announced a $2 billion manufacturing and laboratory expansion at the former Quad Graphics printing plant in nearby Saratoga Springs in 2025.