CHAMPAIGN -- The Champaign County Convention and Visitors Bureau will move to the Atkinson Monument building in downtown Champaign this spring.

The bureau will occupy most of the first floor at 108 S. Neil St., C, while current occupant Precision Graphics will have most of its offices on the second floor.

Bureau President Jayne DeLuce said it's a "high-visibility, high-traffic" location easily accessible to both local residents and visitors.

The office is near the intersection of Neil Street and University Avenue, with Neil providing direct access from Interstate 74 and University providing access from Interstates 57 and 72.

DeLuce said the bureau is eager to be in an architecturally significant building in downtown Champaign, where it can serve "as a true welcome center."

Visitors to the center will have to feed parking meters, but DeLuce said she hopes some two-hour meters on Neil Street can be changed to 30-minute meters to accommodate drop-by traffic.

In considering possible locations, DeLuce said parking was a concern, but the bureau felt high visibility made for "a better trade-off."

"Any time you go to a city, you expect to pay for parking," she added.

Visitors will enter the welcome center from the Neil Street side, and DeLuce hopes to have a library of community resources and perhaps an information kiosk near the front.

She also hopes to have volunteers including retirees and students from the University of Illinois and Parkland College on hand to answer questions. It's possible the office may expand hours so someone will be available on busy weekends.

The bureau will occupy not only the front portion of the Atkinson Monument building, but also the former Price Paint building immediately to the south. The bureau's conference room, which can accommodate about 25, will be at the west end of that building.

Also moving there will be 40 North 88 West, the arts, entertainment and cultural organization that shares space with the visitors bureau. The 40 North group will have a staff of two, once it hires a new director, DeLuce said.

Shouting Ground Technologies, at 105 S. Walnut St., C, will continue to occupy the east end of the Atkinson Monument building.

Precision Graphics owner Jeff Mellander said the company doesn't have "a lot of local interaction" in the building because its clients are largely educational publishers from across the country.

The bureau's lease with Mellander, the building owner, is still being finalized, DeLuce said. But it's likely to be a three-year lease, with rent expected to be "similar to what we are paying at Illini Plaza," she said. Current rent is about $4,000 a month, she added.

For 15 years, the convention and visitors bureau has operated from a second-story office at Illini Plaza, 1817 S. Neil St., C.

It has shared that office with the Champaign County Chamber of Commerce and the Champaign County Economic Development Corp.

But the three agencies are going their separate ways, with the chamber moving to 303 W. Kirby Ave., C, and the economic development group moving to a first-floor office at Illini Plaza.

DeLuce said the Illini Plaza space worked well, but the office wasn't very visible, didn't have walk-by traffic and wasn't easy to find.

"It's hard to describe for first-time visitors," DeLuce said, noting that the building is set back from Neil Street, behind Jiffy Lube.

The bureau's lease at Illini Plaza ends June 30, but DeLuce said she hopes to move downtown by the end of May. A grand opening for the welcome center is slated for Aug. 20 to coincide with the Downtown Festival of the Arts.

In addition to the downtown welcome center, the bureau plans to retain a tourism information center at Champaign's Market Place Shopping Center, as well as information centers at Illinois Terminal, Lincoln Square in Urbana and Willard Airport in Savoy.