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| NewsTuesday, March 4, 2008 4:51 PM CST |
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Champaign company set to move on plans for church property
NORMAL -- A Champaign development company that is purchasing the University Christian Church in uptown Normal could have a new mixed-use building open at the site by 2009 if its plan meets the town’s expectations. “We’re ready to move as quickly as you are,” said Scott Kunkel, construction manager and architect for JSM Development Inc. JSM does everything in-house, Jill Guth, director of development for JSM, told the City Council on Monday night. Besides having Kunkel as a construction manager and architect, Chris Hartman is director of real estate for JSM. The company also does its own leasing and marketing. While Guth and Kunkel said the company does not yet have a specific plan for the church site at 206 North St., JSM specializes in mixed-use buildings that have retail on the first floor, office space on the second floor and high-end rental apartments on the top floors. Retailers in JSM’s Champaign properties include Noodles & Co., Chipotle, Busey Bank, Penn Station, Subway, Smoothie King, Rosati’s Pizza, National City and, coming this spring, Urban Outfitters. Guth said the University of Illinois also is a “major client of JSM,” leasing 100,000 square feet of office space. “We wanted to expand and Bloomington-Normal was obvious to us,” said Kunkel. “We’re very, very, very picky about location. This was the first site to meet our high standards for location.” Council members agreed that the site is important to the uptown renovation plan. “This is the last major block in the core area to be developed to this extent,” said Councilman Jeff Fritzen. “It’s a critical block, so we are going to be very particular.” Councilwoman Sonja Reece said the project needs to be a collaborative effort with other uptown developers “so it looks like we thought about this more than a weekend.” One of those developers is One Main Development of Champaign, which has committed to building three uptown mixed-use buildings and originally had the City Council’s support for redevelopment of the church property. One Main planned to conduct a year-long planning process with stakeholder input but did not plan to buy the church property. The plan went beyond just the church property to incorporate virtually the entire block bordered by Fell Avenue on the west, North Street on the south, Broadway on the east and College Avenue on the north. The one exception is the new bank building at College and Broadway. The block includes the town’s post office and a strip center with several small businesses including recently opened Harold’s Chicken Shack, ISHookah Lounge and Serendipity. Guth would not comment on whether JSM also would be looking at a project of that scope. Kunkel said JSM plans to do more research and talk to more people before creating a plan for the site. The church congregation approved the sale of the property to JSM on Sunday. E-mail this story | Print this story | Search archives | RSS Show comments |  Hide comments | Hide comments on all stories |
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