Uno Veterans Memorial Charter School Campus

The United Neighborhood Organization (UNO), Chicago’s largest Latino community group, recently was awarded a $98 million grant to build eight new schools, believed to be the largest charter school appropriation to any community-based organization in United States history. Presently serving 3,450 students, 91 percent of whom are Hispanic, UNO will educate more than 8,000 students annually when the new buildings open.

Northwoods was contracted in 2007 to help UNO grow into Illinois’ biggest charter school manager, converting an existing industrial building on the city’s working- class Southwest Side into three new charter schools known as the Veterans Memorial Charter School Campus. Northwoods performed the installation of all new heating and air conditioning, complete with chillers, boilers, cooling towers, hot water piping, gas piping and pumps. On an accelerated work schedule for a project that was LEED certified, Northwoods had to have all major mechanical equipment crane-lifted into the building’s penthouse, with limited access for equipment staging and crane set up. The schools were dedicated in June 2009 bearing the names of Latinos who were killed in U.S. military duty.