Western Specialty Contractors’ Peoria Branch recently replaced the roof on the Kewanee Life Skills Reentry Center in Kewanee, IL.
Located at 2021 Kentville Road in Kewanee, the facility teaches valuable life skills and prepares incarcerated individuals for reentry into society. Kewanee offers educational, job-readiness, and cognitive-behavioral therapy courses to individuals who have 1 to 4 years left on their sentences. The multi-security facility opened in February 2017, previously used as a juvenile detention center since 2001.
The facility’s roof had weathered shingles that were disintegrating and blowing off. The Illinois Department of Corrections hired Western in March 2023 to replace over 110,000 sq ft of roofing on six housing pods and the maintenance and security buildings.
Western started the project by hiring a fencing subcontractor to widen the interior gates to allow construction equipment and cranes to pass through. On some lifts, crews used a large crane to lift materials into position from outside the double-barbed wire fence, which helped speed up logistics because the crane would not fit through the gates.
Western’s scope of work included:
- Removing the roof shingles and plywood, leaving existing 4” Polyiso insulation over the metal and concrete decks
- Mechanically fastening a layer of 2.1-inch nailbase insulation to the concrete deck
- Adhering PACLAD HT ice and water shield over the wood
- Replacement of expansion joints with PACLAD-approved and warranted details
- Installing a mechanically double-locked PACLAD Tite Loc Plus, 24-gauge Kynar steel roof system with a 20-year weather-tight warranty
Entering the secure facility required Western’s crews to keep strict logs of the tools they were using, which were inspected by the gate guard every day. The secure facility also posed other challenges for Western’s crews.
“There were numerous locked gates we had to pass through to get to each roof area; a lot of time spent on the project just getting set up every day,” said Assistant Branch Manager Jared Osterman. “The property was massive. Just moving through the grounds required ATVs to get the crews to where they needed to work. We did have to work around barbed wire in certain areas and hired a specialty fence subcontractor to remove it and replace it to get the roof flashed in properly.”
Western completed the large project on budget by November 2025.
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About Western Specialty Contractors
Family-owned and operated for more than 100 years, Western Specialty Contractors is the nation’s largest specialty contractor in masonry and concrete restoration, waterproofing, and specialty roofing. Western offers a nationwide network of expertise that building owners, engineers, architects, and property managers can count on to develop cost-effective, corrective measures that can add years of useful life to a variety of structures, including industrial, commercial, healthcare, historic, educational and government buildings, parking structures, and sports stadiums. Western is headquartered in St. Louis, MO, with 30 branch offices nationwide and employs more than 1,200 salaried and hourly professionals who offer the best, time-tested techniques and innovative technology. For more information about Western Specialty Contractors, visit https://westernspecialtycontractors.com.