Business View Magazine - July 2016 73
tax abatement program. Because we partner with the
school district and the park district and other taxing
bodies, it’s actually the equivalent of a $60,000 incen-
tive over five years, which is huge for a typical home.
For the first year, you would get pretty close to a 100
percent abatement on your property taxes and then
80 percent the next year, then 60, 40, and so on. And
people are very excited about this and we see it as a
way to jump start construction again because of the
lingering effects of the Recession. But also because
construction costs have gone up so much, it’s a way to
overcome those impediments and build out some of
our neighborhoods that we’ve started.”
Another big project that the city is heavily involved in is
MCORE, which will provide enhanced transit access to
and from the University. Financed by a federal TIGER
(Transportation Investment Generating Economic Re-
covery) grant, as well as some state and local monies,
the $40-50 million dollar project will include a major
rebuild of the Green Street corridor which connects UI
to downtown Urbana.
In order to maintain the city’s other roads, which suf-
fer from potholes caused by the winter’s freeze/thaw
cycles, Tyler says that, because of declining revenues
from gasoline taxes and the difficulty in getting trans-
portation funding legislation passed at the state and
federal levels, the City has recently added a small local,
motor fuel sales tax. “Nobody wants to live in a town
with potholes and we’re doing the best we can,” she
laments. “Our challenge is one that you see through-
out the United States and that is that the actual mate-
rial costs for road maintenance and road construction
have gone up well beyond inflation and CPI (Consumer
Price Index) and the revenue sources have gone way
down. And I think that the United States is falling be-
hind countries that are not even our peers, in terms of
road maintenance, and it’s because of our structural
problems in the financing of roads.”
While keeping the oasis that is Urbana humming along,
Tyler says that the cornfields are doing just fine. Much
local produce – corn, tomatoes, lettuce, watermelon,
and more - finds its way to the stores, restaurants, and
homes of the city. The Urbana Sweetcorn Festival is an
annual event in the heart of downtown, and The Mar-
ket at the Square has been a community affair since
1979. “We have what’s been rated the number one
farmers’ market in Illinois,” she says proudly. “It’s lo-
cated downtown at Lincoln Square, which was one of
the first interior, enclosed malls.” The Lincoln Square
Mall is a historic building complex, centered around
the Urbana-Lincoln Hotel, built in 1923. Both the hotel
and the mall are still in operation and the complex was
listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
2006. Thousands of people attend the farmers’ mar-
ket every Saturday morning from May to November.
So, if you ever find yourself travelling through the corn-
fields of east-central Illinois and you’re looking for a
metropolitan oasis – you’ll find Urbana right around
the bend.
PREFERRED VENDOR
Habitat For Humanity of Champaign County
- Habi-
tat for Humanity of Champaign County and ReStore is
a nonprofit, Christian housing ministry that works to
both eliminate poverty housing around the world and
to make adequate housing a matter of conscience and
action. The organization builds and sells simple, qual-
ity, affordable houses using a zero interest mortgage
program through volunteer labor and tax-deductible
donations of money, land, and materials. Families are
selected based on their level of need, willingness to
work, acceptance of responsibilities, and ability to re-
pay the mortgage. Habitat for Humanity also provides
educational programs for good financial management
and home maintenance to its homeowners. -
-
habitat.org
