Trees removed from future Lisle tech school site

Hundreds of trees have been removed from the site of a long-vacant corporate training center along Warrenville Road in Lisle to make room for a $35 million technical school.

Universal Technical Institute is planning to build a 185,000-square-foot facility on the roughly 20-acre parcel at 2611 Corporate West Drive that the for-profit school is leasing from land owner iStar Financial Inc.

But first, New-York-based iStar is going to demolish the existing 236,000-square-foot corporate training center. The building, which includes computer training rooms and 229 dormitory rooms, last was used by Unisys Corp. as a corporate training facility. It’s been vacant since 2006.

Tree removal first was observed last week at the once-densely wooded site.

Construction of UTI’s school is expected to start in the fall. The two-story facility would have classrooms and laboratory space to educate up to 1,500 students in the areas of automotive, diesel and industrial technology.

Classes at the new campus are scheduled to start during the fourth quarter of 2013.