City unveils downtown engagement results; consultants flag steps to boost vibrancy and remove investment barriers

City planning staff and consultants presented findings from the launch phase of a downtown plan update at the Champaign City Council study session on April 22, reporting robust public engagement and a market analysis that identifies steps to improve downtown vibrancy, remove investor barriers and leverage housing momentum.

Senior planner Eric Van Buskirk introduced the presentation and said the engagement phase combined summer in-person outreach with a community survey. Evan Teplinski, a Bloomberg Harvard City Hall fellow, told the council staff engaged more than 500 people at events last summer and received more than 1,500 responses to a community-input survey.

Teplinski summarized the community’s top descriptive words for an ideal downtown and said the most common phrase was "safe, walkable and vibrant," a formulation staff used to group related priorities. He said responses showed strong local affection for downtown restaurants and events but also concerns about safety, vacant storefronts, limited family-friendly spaces and inconsistent daytime activity.

SB Friedman market analyst Karen Kim summarized commercial and residential metrics. Staff reported downtown is home to roughly 4,100 residents, about 4,900 employees and more than 500 businesses; the downtown contains about 2,800 housing units, about 87% renter-occupied. Placer.ai visitation metrics presented by staff show downtown visitation dipped during the pandemic and has largely recovered to near pre-pandemic levels; visitation spikes during third-quarter months (summer/fall event periods).

Kim and staff said the housing market has supported moderate-scale, moderate-priced multifamily development in recent years—mostly three-story walkups with rents that remain relatively affordable compared with larger metropolitan areas—but that ground-floor retail faces financial constraints. Staff reported an estimated 680,000 square feet of retail-related space downtown and said rental rates for most storefronts generally fall in a range that supports restaurants but not many traditional retailers without larger foot-traffic increases.

Consultants and staff recommended three broad strategy areas: improve public perception and safety through streetscape and programming investments; remove barriers to investment by streamlining permitting and encouraging adaptive reuse; and invest in catalytic public projects and linkages that increase time spent downtown.

Council members asked detailed questions about visitation patterns, whether nightlife was captured in the data, the thresholds required to support a grocery store downtown, and adaptive reuse opportunities. Staff said data show the highest visitation centers are County Market, a cluster near campus-town and South Neil Street destinations, and that County Market recorded nearly 300,000 visits in calendar year 2024.

Staff outlined next steps: identify and analyze opportunity/catalyst sites, perform targeted market assessments for first-phase projects, draft the plan’s vision and policies, and return to the community for additional engagement. Planners estimated the drafting and targeted analysis work will take roughly 12 months and include additional public outreach and plan commission/public hearings before final adoption.

After the presentation, council voted to direct staff to prepare draft vision elements, guiding principles, strategies and measures—work staff said will be refined through targeted market studies and further community engagement.