Biohazard and Crime Scene Remediation in University Park, IL

University Park is a village in Will County (with a small portion in Cook County) and one of the Chicago region's few planned communities, developed in the 1960s first as Wood Hill, then as Park Forest South, before taking its present name.

The village incorporated as Park Forest South in 1967 under developer Nathan Manilow's New Community Enterprises, with early projections of 100,000 residents under the federal New Communities Act of 1968, though growth later settled into a slow-growth plan.

University Park is home to Governors State University, a public university established in 1969 on a campus of about 750 acres of prairie roughly 30 miles south of Chicago.

Governors State University was founded as an upper-division institution mainly serving community-college graduates, and it remains the only regional public comprehensive university in Chicago's south suburban area, enrolling about 4,400 students.

The Governors State campus hosts the Nathan Manilow Sculpture Park, an internationally recognized outdoor sculpture park developed by Lewis Manilow to honor his father.

The village had a population of 7,145 at the 2020 census, living in roughly 2,400 households spread across about 10.8 square miles.

University Park sits on the Valparaiso Moraine, which is also the Eastern Continental Divide, so rain falling on different sides of the village drains toward different watersheds.

When Governors State University opened, the Illinois Central Railroad made its first commuter extension in 40 years to serve the new community, and the village is still served by a Metra station.

Television producer Shonda Rhimes, creator of Grey's Anatomy and Scandal, lived in University Park (then Park Forest South) as a child.

The Governors Gateway Industrial Park next to Interstate 57 is an integral part of the village, a legacy of the original new-town plan that paired residential neighborhoods with employment land.