URBANA – Nearly 20 units of the new Crystal View Townhomes will open later this month.

The multifamily complex will eventually have 70 apartments at the former site of Lakeside Terrace public housing across Broadway Avenue from Crystal Lake Park in north Urbana. It will be locally managed and is being co-developed by the Homestead Corp. of Champaign-Urbana and Brinshore Development, based in Northbrook.

Officials said the first 18 units of Crystal View will open this month.

"We are excited," said Linda Fulkerson, project manager for Brinshore. "They are moving right along."

Brinshore is also co-developer with Homestead at Douglass Square, a 50-unit mixed-income project that replaced Burch Village at Bradley Avenue and Fifth Street.

Aaron Smith, executive director at Homestead, said there is already plenty of interest from potential Crystal View tenants.

"We have at least 60 serious inquiries, so far," Smith said.

The first apartments will have two or three bedrooms, he said. There will also be four-bedroom units, along with four single-family four-bedroom homes in the complex.

All the apartments will have geothermal heating/cooling systems, and the complex is designed with rain gardens and a rain walkway to collect and divert runoff, he said. Native plants and rocks will be part of the landscaping.

"At the old development, there was a lot of flooding," Smith said.

"A lot of green features, a lot of energy efficiency has been incorporated in the design," he said.

David Edbrooke, manager at Douglass Square for Ludwig and Co. of Gurnee, the property managers, said mixed-income housing is a "fantastic" concept. "In my opinion, it is the best of all housing options," Edbrooke said. "It mixes all types of income."

Tenants are paying at least some rent, and they "respect what they are paying for," he said.

"They invest a part of themselves in the community," he said.