CHAMPAIGN -- The city council on Tuesday night moved forward with an agreement it hopes will enhance business development and connectivity between three of the city's core business centers.

If the contract receives formal approval, the city would match private donations to the Champaign Center Partnership up to $50,000 and provide half the time of a city planner to help with the staffing needs of the newly created business development group.

City officials say the new partnership is a different approach to how such private business partnerships had organized themselves in the past. Smaller groups, like the Champaign Downtown Association and the Campustown Business Association, were not sustainable.

The new group essentially combines the two with new representation for the city's "midtown" area, which lies between the downtown and Campustown.

The agreement between the city and the partnership would last one year with the opportunity for renewal if both parties agree.

"The key over the next two years is to get them to the point where they are sustainable," said Planning Director Bruce Knight.

Private business partnerships are important, Knight said, because they can do things the city cannot: educational and professional development opportunities for existing businesses, for example.

"But we can build the infrastructure," Knight said, and encourage "certain kinds of activity."

City officials have long-range plans that they hope will encourage business development in the three core areas, said city planner T.J. Blakeman. They hope to build public plazas and beautify entrances to the downtown area, like the fork where Neil and Walnut streets split.

Officials hope to have completed a new streetscape for Green Street between Fourth and First streets by 2016 – a similar plan enacted between Fourth and Wright streets created a better business environment for those blocks, they say.

Jill Guth, the director of JSM Development and a key organizer of the new partnership, said it was humbling to find how many businesses were interested in membership and participation when she first reached out to them.

Council member Kyle Harrison said the partnership seems much more promising now than it did when organizers set out to build the group last year.

"When we first met, it didn't seem like a good game plan from the very beginning," Harrison said. "It's come a long way."