City of Champaign Roundup

There were a few various local government news items for the City of Champaign this week relating to the City government, funding for a Park District aquatic center, and an asbestos scare at a Unit 4 school. On downtown, the News-Gazette highlighted some recent closings and matched that with future optimism of new business:

Downtown Champaign in midst of transition game
In the last few months, Bacaro, Radio Maria, Destihl, 51 Main and Memphis on Main have either closed or announced plans to move from downtown.

But One Main Development CEO Dave Jones isn't concerned.

"When something closes or changes, it gives everyone pause," he said. "But if you take a step back and look at everything in the larger picture, it's not really a concern."
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Once Bubin Properties completes its mixed-use development at the old News-Gazette press building across the street at 48 E. Main St., and if and when The Yards project is completed on the south end of downtown, Nudo expects the east end of downtown to thrive...

The Yards is a $200 million project that would include an expansion of MTD's Illinois Terminal, a new hockey arena, a 175-room hotel, convention space, and 154,000 square feet of retail and office space.

The city of Champaign has been in discussions with the project's developers about what they'll ask of the city, and city planner T.J. Blakeman said the project is tentatively scheduled to appear before the city council sometime this spring.

More at the full article here. The Park District

Champaign Park District still working on funding for pool at Martens Center
While the Champaign Park District gets ready to proceed with the new Martens Center at Human Kinetics Park, officials remain uncertain as to whether to include a pool in the new facility.

The district's director of development, Laura Auteberry, said the decision on including a pool could hinge on how much additional money can be raised for Martens, which will be built at 1501 N. Market St.

Auteberry said more than $10 million has been raised for the Martens Center, led by a $4 million gift from Rainer Martens, the founder of Human Kinetics Publishers, and his wife, Julie.

In addition, the Champaign Park District has made a commitment to provide $2 million for the center.

"While the $10 million is sufficient to build the community center, it doesn't allow us to create a center with many of the amenities the community would benefit from, which has a projected cost of $14.5 million," park district Executive Director Joe DeLuce said. "If construction began today, we would lose the planned aquatics area."
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People, businesses and organizations interested in making contributions to the aquatic center may contact DeLuce at 217-819-3821 or joe.deluce@champaignparks.com.

Full article here. WCCU had a video segment here and a transcript blurb excerpted below:

Students at Central High School are able to return to their classrooms after an asbestos scare.

Last week, Unit 4 School District said they found traces of asbestos in some of their material used to hold windows.

They were submitted for testing.

Those results stated that two of the classrooms were negative, but a third had "unacceptable limits".

Unit 4 said they applied a process of negative pressure to clean the entire area.

Now, all three classrooms are clear for students to use.

 This was a followup of a previous segment alerting that students were moved as a precaution here.