New downtown Urbana senior housing to be available this spring

A redevelopment of three vacant buildings in downtown Urbana into 51 apartments began in September and work on two of the buildings is expected to be done by May.

The development, called Legacy Place, involves the old Douglas Hotel as well as the former Urbana North and South Elementary Schools. The three will be called Legacy Place Monument Square, Legacy North and Legacy South respectively. The new apartment units will be spread out between those three buildings.

Marcia Bailey, with the Champaign Economic Partnership, said that Legacy South, located at the old elementary school site on South Main Street, will be the first to be completed.

The former Douglas Hotel building will be the last one to be fully renovated.

Herron Property Management, which will be responsible for managing the properties, recently launched a website, livelegacyplace.com, for the apartments.

Those interested can sign up to start the process of applying to live in those units.

Bailey said that renovations to the properties are ahead of schedule.

Those renovations started after $13 million in funding was approved for the project. That gave the green light to start construction, representatives of the Champaign Economic Partnership said last year.

That money is a combination of federal and state Historic Tax Credits, low income housing tax credits, an Ohio Housing Finance Agency loan and a construction loan.

It took several years to arrange funding for the redevelopment of the three buildings.

The Douglas has been empty since 2004 and takes up nearly an entire corner of Monument Square. Local leaders hope that converting it to senior housing will boost local economic activity as well as free up additional housing in a traditionally tight market.

“The Douglas had been sitting empty for years and there had been multiple attempts in the past to do something with that property,” Bailey said.

The Douglas as well as the former elementary school sites are being developed by Flaherty & Collins Properties, which has been working with community partners in Urbana since 2017.

Urbana Mayor Bill Bean said the senior housing projects are part of larger economic development efforts that are intended to encourage development of other older buildings. He said having more people living in the area will boost business for local stores and restaurants.