Community Impact Award –
Unity Junior High School, Cicero, Illinois
As one of the oldest and largest municipalities in the State
of Illinois, the City of Cicero lacked the undeveloped land
needed to accommodate a rapidly expanding public school population.
Faced with the prospect of condemning large tracts of existing
housing to make room for a school, Cicero School District
99 instead decided to target an 18-acre former industrial
property for redevelopment. The project outcome is a 442,000
sq. ft. junior high school that provides educational and recreational
space for the entire community.
Located in the center of the community, the former Danly
Machine site was abandoned for nearly 20 years. Historically
an industrial site since the early 1900s, operations at the
site included carriage metal work and upholstering, manufacture
of household appliances, munitions casings, automotive and
farm equipment, and some processes that included painting,
engineering, and manufacturing of large machines.
Extensive remediation and demolition occurred to prepare
the brownfield site for its new student facility. Decades
of manufacturing left behind concerns of industrial contamination.
Investigations revealed soils that were impacted by mineral
spirits, chlorinated solvents, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)
and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Following asbestos
abatement and the removal of fluorescent lighting fixtures,
thirteen acres of old structures were demolished to prepare
for new construction. Fluorescent lamps contain mercury and
the ballasts contain PCBs, thus necessitating removal prior
to structure demolition. More than 65,000 cubic yards of contaminated
soil were hauled to landfills. To more efficiently investigate
and remediate contamination, the site was divided into seven
zones. Zones 1-5 were remediated to residential standards
and contain the school facility. In Zones 6 and 7 any residual
contamination was capped as facility parking lots.
Unity Junior High School is actually two schools under one
roof, divided into east and west campuses. Each school has
its own entrance and administration and is organized as four
“houses” where students spend most of their day.
To achieve an intimate educational experience, students remain
within one school and “house” with the same teaching
staff for both 7th and 8th grades. This experience is reinforced
through the educational curriculum and education facility
planning. A four-story gently curving structure contains the
classroom “houses” with the Library/Media Center
located centrally on the second floor overlooking the main
floor student commons. Two cafetoriums and a gymnasium structure
that can be divided into twelve teaching stations complete
the facility.
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| Aerial View of Unity
Junior High School - two schools under one roof, divided
into east and west campuses. |
Cicero’s new $89 million junior high school has 370
employees and 4,000 students. The facility includes 12 basketball
courts and 4.7 acres of athletic fields. Cicero School District
99 spent $10 million and fifteen months demolishing industrial
structures and cleaning up the site to meet Illinois EPA standards.
The brownfields redevelopment turned an eyesore into a valuable
community resource. Unity Junior High School is a large-scale
public project that represents outstanding cooperation between
state and local governments and construction, design, and
environmental firms.
For more information about this project, contact Donna Kalita-Restko,
Assistant Superintendent of Business Affairs at (708) 863-4856.
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the CBI site, please contact brownfields@gcr1.com.
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