CORE Construction Services of Illinois, Inc.

CORE Construction Services of Illinois, Inc. is the Illinois operating company of the CORE Construction group, headquartered at 601 SW Water Street in Peoria with a second office in Lisle. The business traces to 1937 and the Otto Baum masonry company, and today delivers construction management, general contracting, design-build and job order contracting concentrated in K-12 and higher education, civic and public safety, and healthcare work. CORE holds the $243.5 million construction contract for the Illinois State Capitol north wing renovation in Springfield, a restoration that includes a new stained glass ceiling over the Senate chamber and an underground visitor entrance. Other Illinois work includes the OSF HealthCare Comprehensive Cancer Institute in Peoria and the Illinois State University College of Engineering in Bloomington. The wider group employs more than 1,200 people across nine states.

Job order contracting is one of the busiest parts of CORE’s business and one of the least visible. JOC lets an owner put a single contract in place and then release small, commonly encountered repair and renovation work against it without running a separate procurement each time. CORE reports more than 5,000 JOC and small projects completed and roughly $700 million of JOC work to date. The range is wide: the smallest release so far was $121, the largest $37 million. Public clients reach the contract through cooperative purchasing programs including Sourcewell, Omnia Partners, TIPS, NCPA, BuyBoard, E&I and Equalis Group, and JOC clients span education, public works, healthcare, hospitality, commercial, multi-family, industrial and cooperative sectors.

The conventional side of the business runs preconstruction, construction and full project management from concept through completion, covering new builds, renovations and disaster recovery.

Underneath all of it sits a six-part standard CORE calls Operational Excellence: safety, quality, schedule, cost, trade partners and client. The safety half is specific. Every trade submits a daily hazard analysis before work starts, site management logs daily safety observations through SafetyNet, all project site supervisors carry OSHA 30 training, and site-specific orientation is required of every trade member. CORE reports passing 2.5 million man hours without a lost-time accident on a single project.

Public safety work produced a program of its own. In 2017 CORE launched CleanPSB, short for Clean Public Safety Building, after recognizing how much of a firefighter’s or police officer’s contaminant exposure happens inside their own station. The program feeds health and safety findings back to clients through design and construction so the finished building reduces exposure risk.

Recent Illinois projects beyond the Capitol include the Town of Normal Fire Station No. 2, the McLean County Animal Control Facility in Shirley, the Urbana Park District Health and Wellness Center, Illinois Wesleyan University’s Munsell and Ferguson Hall renovation, a gymnasium addition at Stark County High School in Toulon, and a remodel and addition for New Berlin CUSD #16’s junior/senior high school. A new training facility for the Lockport Township Fire Protection District broke ground in Crest Hill.

The Illinois practice works from Peoria and from 801 Warrenville Road in Lisle, reachable at 331-284-5323. The wider CORE group is headquartered at 6320 Research Rd. in Frisco, Texas, with offices in Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada and Texas.