The Oswego Public Library District looks to expand its services with the recent acquisition of a house located near its downtown Oswego campus.

At the May 27 Oswego Library Board meeting, trustees approved the purchase of a four-bedroom house at 55 N. Madison St. for $514,999. The 2,268 square-foot house was built in 1904.

Waubonsie Creek is located between the house and the library at 32 W. Jefferson St.

Plans are still in the works as far as what the Library District will do with the property.

“We’ve been planning kind of an outdoor classroom/small community amphitheater over there,” Oswego Library Director Krista Katzen said. “We’ve had that in the design stage for maybe the last five years. And the hangup has always been putting a bridge from the library across the creek. We’ve had engineers look at it and it would cost like $800,000 to do.”

As an alternative, she said the library district has been looking at using the existing bridge on Madison Street rather than having to build a bridge over the creek. Some adjustments may have to be made to the bridge, Katzen said.

“I think we’re going to be able to do something that will end up being cheaper than building a free-standing bridge would be,” she said. “Even when you add in the cost of the house, I think it’s going to be cheaper.”

The Library Board also might decide to reuse the house.

“The house itself is really nice,” Katzen said. “I think they’re going to try to find a way for us to use it, whether it’s for office space or public meeting space. We’re not really sure. It’s kind of going to depend on the cost.”

Converting the housing into a public facility will have additional costs such as installing sprinklers and cameras and making it ADA accessible, she said.

“So we really have to look at how much it’s going to cost to do that before we really decide what’s it going to be,” Katzen said.

The Library District does plan to store its new outreach vehicle in the garage at the house along with the materials in the outreach vehicle. The vehicle will travel to schools, homes and other destinations.

“All the books that go in the van can be stored in there as well,” Katzen said.

While Oswego Library District’s Montgomery campus has outdoor space, its campus in downtown Oswego doesn’t.

“We don’t have any outdoor space at the Oswego location,” she said. “And the indoor space, that room only holds 50 people. We have not been able to have any of our larger events in Oswego due to space constraints. This is kind of step one to actually making that whole planned outdoor space for the library.”

The district serves a population that has grown to more than 70,000 people in an area spanning more than 52 square miles. The library district serves portions of Kendall, Will and Kane counties.