Business View Magazine - July 2016 71
ers, poets, and performers of all kinds throughout
Champaign, Urbana, UI, and the rest of the county.
Tyler’s Office is also working on redeveloping the city’s
inner core, while simultaneously striving to grow new
neighborhoods. “We have a challenge,” she says, “be-
cause about 30 percent of our land area is tax-exempt,
so we have a mission to build our tax base and one
thing that we’ve been spending a lot of time on in re-
cent years is our downtown. And it’s getting to be very
vibrant, very fun. We have a classic, mid-west down-
town and we’re looking for infill around this core. We
use tax increment financing and other tools to help in-
centivize what’s going on in our downtown.” The City
has accelerated some downtown vibrancy by installing
what Tyler calls “curbanas,” extensions to curbsides to
help facilitate more outside dining. “We call them ‘cur-
banas” because they are on the ‘curb’ in ‘Urbana,’”
she quips.
In addition, the state government recently approved
Urbana for a new Enterprise Zone in order to spur
new home construction. “We had a lot of construction
happen in the early 2000s, and then in 2008, things
slowed down. And what we’re looking at, now, is incen-
tivizing new housing construction in our growth areas,
because we understand that adding to our population
base will build our tax base and also help to support
the businesses that are here, and to make sure that
our schools are vital.
“So, we are starting a new program called: Think Ur-
bana. It’s a great incentive for people to build a new
home or a new duplex in these areas. It’s a five-year
