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Savoy Plaza project will start Monday
SAVOY – Work will begin Monday on a $9 million remodeling of the Savoy Plaza, with a new Schnucks grocery as the centerpiece.
Regency Properties, the Evansville, Ind.-based owner of the plaza at the corner of Curtis Road and U.S. 45, is expected to announce the redevelopment plans for the property later today.
Committee approves two picks for district board seats
URBANA – The county board's policy and personnel committee Wednesday approved Champaign County Board Chair Barbara Wysocki's nominations of incumbent Vicki Stewart and newcomer Ron Peters to seats on the MTD board.
The eight board members voted unanimously for Peters, who replaces longtime Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District board member George Friedman. Stewart's appointment was approved 5-3, largely a split on party lines. The Democratic committee members, Tom Betz, Steve Beckett, Tony Fabri and Jennifer Putman, as well as Republican Deb Feinen, voted to retain Stewart. Republicans Greg Knott, Steve Moser and Jonathan Schroeder voted against Stewart, Wysocki said.
Details on '60s museum presented
HOOPESTON – A museum dedicated to the 1960s could bring a half-million tourists to Hoopeston, a representative told the city council.
George Pedersen, vice president and chief information officer for The Sixties Museum Inc., gave a presentation on what the city could expect if his Chicago-based organization built a proposed 40-acre campus in Hoopeston.
Mattis site moves up last collection by an hour
CHAMPAIGN – Are you the kind of person who likes to pay your bills at the last possible minute?
Or the kind of person who remembers birthdays suddenly and has to rush to get a birthday card mailed?
Fithian a possible Honda plant site
FITHIAN – More than 1,000 acres of mostly farmland near Fithian may be under consideration by Honda as a site for its newest North American assembly plant.
Earlier this month, the automaker announced that it was looking for a Midwest site for its sixth plant.
Urbana council votes in favor of preliminary smoking ban
Smoke 'em if you got 'em, and do it fast if you're in a restaurant, even in a restaurant's bar, in Urbana or Champaign.
The two cities will have some coordinating to do where plain old bars are concerned, but it looks like smokers will have to take it outside there as well by early 2007.
Goal is immersive 3-D video conferencing for the masses
University of Illinois graduate student Wanmin Wu puts her arm around a colleague at the University of California at Berkeley and the two of them mug for the cameras.
They appear together, side by side in 3-D, which is a pretty good trick considering.
$16 million question: Champaign or Iowa City?
CHAMPAIGN – William Boulanger decided Champaign-Urbana was the ideal place to start his chemical supply company.
In 2002, the research chemist did so with the establishment of Obiter Research. Today, the company employs 11 people at EnterpriseWorks and the Technology Commercialization Building, both on the University of Illinois campus.
Smoke hasn't cleared for hookah bars
CHAMPAIGN – Garenne Bigby opened his Champaign hookah bar, Nargile, about 2 years ago. After a slow start, the business at 207 W. Clark St. is doing well.
But hookah's days could be numbered in Champaign-Urbana if a smoking ban in most public places goes into effect. That possibility has Champaign City Council member Ken Pirok suggesting that bars that offer hookah should be exempt from the smoking ban.
Two-story house with link to Lincoln lives on in new storage business
SAVOY – Had Abe Lincoln ever needed some extra space to keep his stovepipe hats, he might have felt right at home using one of the rental storage units being built along the railroad tracks in Savoy.
After all, standing right in the middle of the storage complex property, at the southeast corner of Curtis Road and U.S. 45, is an old house Abe is said to have visited when he passed through this area as a circuit-riding lawyer.
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