City of Champaign Updates

Following up on a previous post on the City Council meeting and also a Midtown development. From the News-Gazette the Wednesday on the council meeting:

Champaign council approves sweeping rule changes for parking lots
Sweeping changes to regulations regarding city-owned parking lots were approved nearly unanimously at Tuesday's Champaign City Council meeting.

Council member Clarissa Nickerson Fourman, the lone dissenter, said she believes the beefed-up rules will only push unwanted activity into other parking lots.

Tuesday's vote creates official language prohibiting activities that aren't related to parking — such as alcohol consumption, gambling, littering and selling products or services — in city-owned lots and metered spaces.

Fourman said the presence of that kind of parking lot activity is due in part to a lack of activities for young African-Americans...

In other business

— The council accepted a $250,000 grant from the state to reimburse the police department for its purchases of officer body cameras and in-car video equipment. The department budgeted $551,733 in 2016 for 35 in-car camera systems, 125 body cameras, a digital management system and accessories.

— Members finalized an agreement that allows the Bristol Place affordable housing development to start construction. Neighborhood services director Kerri Wiman said the plan is to have a ground-breaking ceremony in mid-July.

— The council raised the city's administrative purchasing limit from $17,500 to $35,000. The limit was last revised in 2003, according to a city staff report.

More at the full article here. And in a follow up on the Midtown development, the News-Gazette had more information yesterday:

Midtown Crossing developer details his wish list for complex
By this time next year, Midtown could have a new brewery, distillery and restaurant.

Those, along with 10 upscale apartments, are all part of bar owner Scott Cochrane's plans for his Midtown Crossing project at Chester and Water streets.

"Midtown's going to have growth," Cochrane said. "I've always loved Chester Street, that two-block area, and then the opportunity came up."

In the past two years, he and his companies have bought three of the four properties at that intersection for a combined $1.57 million.

The southeast corner, where the former Chester Street Bar was located, is expected to be the first of the three to open to the public, Cochrane said.

He wants to make that a brewery with a taproom and five apartments, and he's planning to open the brewery this year...

Across Chester Street in the Avenue Building on the northeast corner of the intersection, Cochrane wants to build five "turn-of-the-century" apartments on the second floor and make the first floor a restaurant/bar.

On Tuesday, the Champaign City Council approved $300,000 in redevelopment grants to reimburse Cochrane for his $1.67 million plan to renovate the building.

"I don't know the concept yet" of the restaurant, said Cochrane, who also owns the Campustown bars Red Lion, Firehaus and the Clybourne.

More details, before and after concept drawings, and an overview map at the full article here.