Watch the Fox 32 Chicago feature on the Austin HOPE Center here
UJAMAA Construction is proud to serve as the builder for the Austin HOPE Center, a new community-centered healthcare hub taking shape on Chicago’s West Side.
Located at Chicago Avenue and Lawler Avenue, the three-story, 25,000-square-foot facility will bring pediatric specialty care, behavioral health services, and community resources closer to families in and around Austin. For a neighborhood where access to specialized care has often required traveling outside the community, this project represents more than a new building. It represents access, dignity, and investment where it is needed most.
Featured recently by Fox 32 Chicago, the Austin HOPE Center is co-owned by Stone Community Development Corporation and Chicago Neighborhood Initiatives, with Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago serving as the anchor tenant. Once complete, the center will provide services connected to asthma, adolescent medicine, weight and wellness, preventive cardiology, gastrointestinal health, nephrology, autism care, and developmental and behavioral pediatrics.
The facility will also include a community room, teen lounge, sensory room, mental health services provided by Thresholds, and space for Wintrust Bank to support financial wellness. Together, these services make the Austin HOPE Center a true neighborhood resource, designed to support the health and well-being of children, families, and the broader community.
For UJAMAA, this is the kind of project that sits at the center of who we are.
We are honored to build projects with national visibility and major institutional impact. Those projects sharpen our expertise, expand our reach, and show what our team can deliver at scale. But our deepest passion is rooted in community work: projects that bring much-needed resources to underinvested neighborhoods, create access where gaps have existed, and turn vacant or overlooked spaces into places of service, opportunity, and hope.
The Austin HOPE Center reflects that purpose.
“This project started as an empty lot, and now it is becoming a pivotal part of the community,” said Glen Knowles, UJAMAA Construction Project Manager, in the Fox 32 Chicago feature.
As builder, UJAMAA’s role is to help translate the vision of our partners into a real, lasting space for the Austin community. From structure to interior finishes, our team is focused on delivering a facility that is safe, welcoming, durable, and ready to serve the families who will walk through its doors.
Construction is progressing toward completion, with final finishes including flooring, ceiling tile, cabinetry, and interior details helping bring the space to life. Each phase of the work moves the project closer to its ultimate purpose: connecting West Side families to care, support, and resources closer to home.
Projects like the Austin HOPE Center remind us that construction is never just about walls, steel, and concrete. It is about what a building makes possible.
It is a parent accessing specialty care without leaving the neighborhood.
It is a young person finding support in a space designed for them.
It is a family receiving services with dignity.
It is a community seeing investment take shape, one block at a time.
UJAMAA Construction is proud to help build the Austin HOPE Center and support a project that reflects the very best of community-centered development.
Watch the Fox 32 Chicago feature on the Austin HOPE Center here
