I took a day trip to Champaign on June 22nd and I was amazed at how a relatively small college town is getting a big city feel. Tons of new buildings have gone up since 2009. By my count, 16 new buildings ranging in height from 4 floors to 27 floors. Most of the new construction has centered around "Campus Town" but some development is creeping into the old Downtown area. The old Downtown area has a new Hyatt Place Hotel and a new apartment building built at the corner of Church & Neil. I decided to make this thread to show you all most of the new buildings and give you a look at things to come.

Green Street in Campus Town has become the highrise district for sure. The tallest buildings in Champaign reside here with another on the way up. 

309 Green (2009)


HERE. (2015)



OPUS' project (2019)


Skyline Tower with construction crane for the "Hub" (2014)


The Hub (2020) will feature a City Target at its base and will add even more people to this busy area.
Construction status...

Rendering...

These next few buildings were in the Midtown area. I didn't get to take pictures of all of them because there were a lot. I plan on going back up there towards the end of the Summer to see how busy it is with the college in session.





This is 212 East Green


Here is a view looking towards Campus Town from a parking lot near the Amtrak Station. The small white building hidden is another apartment building. In the left of the image, you can Collegetown's other high-rise, the Burnham 310 (2008)


For Downtown, here is the Hyatt Place Hotel. The neighboring apartment building (not pictured) follows a similar design style.


Now time for some planned stuff. 

First up, Core Properties is planning a massive $200 Million project that will include apartments, office space, retail, a hotel, convention space, ice rink, ice center for the University of Illinois hockey team, expansion for the Amtrak Station, and parking garages. As of the end of April, the project was still moving through proper City boards of approval. The project's name is "The Yards"

The only other proposed project I could find is an Aloft Hotel. No renderings have been released yet but the hotel would rise on the parking lot at 401 N. Neil Street. It's a small lot. The hotel will be 120 rooms and have a rooftop bar. The latest news on this was from June 11th, 2019 when the developer said that soil testing will commence. 

Other observations...

• For a city of this size, they have a robust bus network. It was fairly busy for being a Saturday in the Summer when students are not in town. 
• The Downtown, Midtown and Campus Town areas have wide sidewalks and clearly marked bike lanes.
• More people were walking and biking than driving it seemed.
• For a city of this size, it's stuck between a large town and small city. The feel of a larger city is there in Campus Town but it's not there yet. It's really weird in my opinion. It's like the town can't figure out what it wants to be. Large town or small city.
• I talked to three people walking around today and they all said things along the lines of "they want more development.", "The city is growing and the infrastructure is strong enough to support more growth", and "We want the city to have more jobs to retain talent that the University puts out." In the end, they were happy about how their city was growing. These were people in their 40s and 50s it appeared and they said that they've lived in the town for a while. 

Amazing how "big" a city can feel when it isn't as spread out by auto-orientation as we're used to.

What is driving the housing demand in Champaign? Is enrollment up, are they seeing a population surge or is there a ‘modern’ housing shortage in general? Just curious.

If it is anything like Columbia MO, it's a general shift in student housing tastes towards the downtown area. Previously the hot student housing option was sprawling apartment complexes on the edge of town connected to campus with a shuttle system. Now Columbia is densifying what looks like a similar fashion. Students want to be able to walk directly to class and walk to and from the bars. 

On the plus side it creates a really neat urban student community downtown. As a student the social utility of living downtown is immense. Plus the increased number of students living downtown has kept area retail booming and vibrant. I

Unfortunately Columbia residents don't draw a lot of benefit from these recent changes (at least that is the local perception.) Nearly all downtown residents are students with longterm Columbia residents for the most part living in the surrounding suburbs. 

It's really all about finding a balance. I know at one point a moratorium was placed on new apartment construction downtown, but I'm not sure if that is still in place. Columbia shouldn't shy away from increasing downtown density but it shouldn't lose sight of it's heritage. The 12 story Rise building for example is an example of a great building that was unfortunately built on the bones perfectly usable historical retail. Columbia needs to implement stronger agenda of preservation. 

If it's international students driving the housing boom, then you can expect it not to last
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktak ... us-decline