Apartment Choice

Photo by: John Dixon/The News-Gazette Gameday Spirit , at the corner of Sixth and Green streets in Champaign, will be demolished in June to make way for a 14-story tower, Bankier Apartments' tallest apartment building yet. Bankier has been planning the project since buying the lot 4 years ago . Other Related Content CHAMPAIGN — After 4 years of planning, Bankier Apartments is about to embark on its tallest apartment building yet — a 14-story building at the southwest corner of Sixth and Green streets. The tower will be constructed on the site now occupied by Gameday Spirit , Hair Benders and Beri Frozen Yogurt & Roll Model. The building will have commercial space on the first floor, parking on the second through fourth floors, a lounge for tenants on the fifth floor and apartments on the sixth through 14th floors, said Miriam Booth, managing broker for Bankier Apartments. "We're going to be starting our demolition on June 1," Booth said. The project is expected...

Photo by: John Dixon/The News-Gazette Though rains have caused some delays, the revamped fields along Stadium Drive between Oak and First Streets are expected to be completed by Aug. 15. The eastern half (top) will be the Marching Illini 's new practice field , and the western half (bottom) will house new campus recreation fields . Taken Thursday July 17 , 2014. Image Tough to think about on these unseasonably breezy July days , but school is just around the corner at the University of Illinois. OK, the start of classes is still more than a month away, but housing officials, construction crews and campus rental agents are busy prepping. Here's a look at some changes you will see on campus this fall. Campus Recreation / Marching Illini fields You may have noticed the giant concrete bunker at First Street at Stadium Drive, which closed off a big chunk of First Street for a while. It's actually an underground detention basin to alleviate flooding in that area, which w...

The 155- unit Ann Arbor City Apartments is under construction on West Washington and South First streets in downtown Ann Arbor . Daniel Brenner | AnnArbor.com Editor's note: The number of parking spaces to be held by Village Green has been corrected. Related story: Rent comparison : What can you get for $2,500 a month around Ann Arbor? Luxury apartments in downtown Ann Arbor are no longer just for students. The under-construction Ann Arbor City Apartments on the southeast corner of West Washington and South First streets is the first luxury apartment project built downtown in years that doesn’t cater to students. It’s designed for young professional renters as well as corporate relocation. "It's midway between the YMCA and the core of downtown where U-M jobs are," said Susan Pollay , executive director of Ann Arbor's Downtown Development Authority . "I think it feels like, from what I saw, exactly one of the things needed in this marketplace." ...

Well before the imposing student apartment complexes towered over Green Street, before the street was alive with coffee shops, restaurants, and bars, and before many of us were alive, Campustown was a neighborhood of homes and small businesses. Turn-of-the- century houses housing professors , U of I faculty, and students shared blocks with intricate fraternity homes and local residences. The streets were small and lined with large trees, streetcars once serviced certain streets, and bars and apartments were almost non-existent. Though our beloved Campustown today is vastly different, vestiges of the area’s first buildings still remain. Champaign-Urbana’s urban fabric is unique among college towns, as the University of Illinois developed between the downtowns, not adjacent to either center city. Instead of growing organically together, Downtown Urbana, Downtown Champaign, and the University all grew differently at their own pace. For this reason, much of the historic architecture i...

An aerial view of Manchester. Juan Parras gives one hell of a tour of Houston’s east side. He’s charming and funny. Wearing a beret, he strikes an old-world look, like he might lead you to a cafe on a plaza. He doesn’t charge a fee for his services. After all, you’re on a “toxic tour,” and Parras is on a mission. Parras grew up in 1950s West Texas . He remembers segregated schools, the restaurants that wouldn’t serve him, the unpaved roads, and the people who lived closest to the local refinery . Those experiences led him to a career as a social justice advocate . The resident of Houston’s heavily industrial east side has worked in a city housing department , for a union, for a law clinic, and on a campaign that stopped a PVC factory from being built in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley.” For the last decade, he has served as executive director of Texas Environmental Justice Advocacy Services (better known as t.e.j.a.s.). Part of his work is leading tours past the heaping piles of scrap met...

SUBHEAD: The Texas capital plan for sustainability does not include some minority neighborhoods. By Raj Mankad on 15 August 2017 for Grist - (https://grist.org/article/the-newer-greener-houston-isnt-for-everybody/) Image above: In some cases, little more than a fence separates Manchester homes from neighboring fossil fuel industry . Photo by Paul Hester. From original article. Juan Parras gives one hell of a tour of Houston’s east side. He’s charming and funny. Wearing a beret, he strikes an old-world look, like he might lead you to a cafe on a plaza. He doesn’t charge a fee for his services. After all, you’re on a “toxic tour,” and Parras is on a mission. Parras grew up in 1950s West Texas . He remembers segregated schools, the restaurants that wouldn’t serve him, the unpaved roads, and the people who lived closest to the local refinery. Those experiences led him to a career as a social justice advocate . The resident of Houston’s heavily industrial east side has worked in a ci...

July 21, 2002 | By Debra Pressey, The Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette. Knight Ridder/Tribune. CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Leon Bankier has been in the business of developing student apartments in Champaign-Urbana for 40 years, and his newest project will place a nine- story building near the western gateway to Campustown. The Bankier project is under construction at the northeast corner of Second and Green streets, and is set for completion in August 2003. Costing about $9.5 million, it will include two levels of underground parking, 4,000 square feet of commercial space for lease on the first floor, and 60 apartments on the second through seventh floors. Four of the apartments will be one-bedroom units, and the rest will have four bedrooms. Champaign- based Bankier Apartments already serves more than 900 tenants in the campus area, but needs more four-bedroom units in its inventory to fill demand, said Miriam Booth, the company's managing broker. Plus, the company couldn't resist the l...

Kampus has been granted planning approval for the redevelopment of two listed buildings, Minto & Turner and Minshull House. A £ 250m joint venture between Capital & Centric and Henry Boot Developments , Kampus will be a distinctive new city centre neighbourhood with apartments to rent, independent bars and restaurants and small- scale local retail . Green space is a focal point of the scheme with a 'secret garden’ and a south-facing square to relax and socialise. Minto & Turner and Minshull House are both derelict nineteenth century former warehouse buildings. Many original features have survived intact and will be retained as part of the sensitive refurbishment of the buildings into 59 characterful loft apartments and circa. 14, 000 sq ft flexible commercial space . Work on the listed buildings will begin in the coming months with the commercial units ready for fit-out and occupation in Spring 2019 and the apartments available to occupy from August 2019. The...

What is a planned community? It's a housing development where the homes, roads, stores and other features are carefully designed and orchestrated to make living there as convenient and enjoyable as can be. For instance: Shopping centers may be deliberately situated within walking distance of planned community homes , which are typically attached—condos, townhouses, apartments—to make travel by foot manageable. Trees and flowers are planted alongside most streets, along with hiking/biking trails. High-speed commuter rails whisk workers to nearby urban centers  for their 9-to-5 jobs. There may even be village-wide Wi-Fi, to boot. Contrast this with the ad hoc way communities are usually built: In many cases, a developer just plunks down row housing on a parcel of land nowhere near commercial districts, which means you'll have to always grab your car keys for a carton of milk. Sometimes, luck or some modicum of forethought helps these neighborhoods turn out OK, but planned communi...