New administration and operations facility will help Oswegoland Park District keep up with growing demands

Following the demolition of the Oswegoland Park District’s decades-old administration and operations facility last year, staff recently started moving into the new and more efficient building that replaced it.

Oswegoland Park District Executive Director Tom Betsinger said the new building is long overdue. The new facility is replacing a building that was built in 1974 as a John Deere dealership facility and acquired by the district in 1986.

“We had a company come through and assess all of our facilities and parks as part of a comprehensive master plan,” Betsinger said. “That facility received a D- rating. The direction from the Park Board was to get a more appropriate modest but modern space that will serve the community for the next several decades.”

The facility had a myriad of problems, including accessibility issues for those with disabilities. The building also had temperature control issues and electrical updates were needed along with a new roof.

“There’s only so much you can do with an aging facility that is built like that,” he said. “It’s not air tight, it’s not water tight. It’s not animal proof, so to speak.”

The Park District proceeded with plans to build a smaller, more efficient 11,000-square-foot administration building and a new 15,000-square-foot park maintenance and operations building on the site.

Staff started moving into the building recently after the Park District received temporary occupancy from the village. Betsinger is happy that employees now have access to natural light in the new building.

“The office that I had been in for the last 20 years was basically a closet with no windows,” he said. “I think staff is appreciating the access to natural light and to not have to rely on overhead lights so much.”

The furniture is also more up to date.

“Some of our staff were still using furniture that we actually picked from the old Oswego Village Hall when they moved to their new space,” Betsinger said. “We went and took some furniture that they were discarding.”

The current Oswego Village Hall opened in 2008.

Betsinger said the new building also provides the space needed to store the equipment for the Park District’s 66 parks, 38 playgrounds and more than 1,000 acres of open space.

He noted the Park District had much less storage space in the former facility.

“And most of it was in the two outbuildings that had dirt floors,” Betsinger said. “So imagine trying to keep your sports equipment clean when it’s being stored in a dirt floor barn.”

The Park District serves more than 66,000 people, including all of Oswego, parts of Montgomery, Aurora and Plainfield and all of Boulder Hill.

The project, which is being paid for through reserve funds and a $5 million non-referendum bond, is running slightly under budget.

“Right now, we’re at about $13 million, so we’re a little under budget,” Betsinger said. “And we expect to come under budget and on time with this project.”

Longtime Oswegoland Park District employee Laura Finch, who is the district’s director of marketing & customer service, is happy about the impact the new building will have.

She had worked out of the former building for most of her time with the district.

“I started in a hallway and then moved into the kitchen office that also had a bathroom in it,” Finch said. “Then I moved downstairs to one of the closets. We always made do with what we had. We’re looking to serve the community and we were happy to make do with the space we had. But this has really been exciting to be able to have something that’s built for us.”

A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new building is set to take place in July. This year also marks the Oswegoland Park District’s 75th anniversary.

The Park District was established by referendum in April 1950.