The next chapter in the long saga of the hotel begins on September 11th of this year with another attempt at auctioning the property, after a failed one last year. We’ve written about the hotel a few times, most recently here and here. Here’s the full press release from the City of Urbana:
Urbana Landmark Hotel Up for Auction in September
The City of Urbana has been notified by brokerage Avison Young that the Urbana Landmark Hotel will be put up for auction beginning September 11, 2018.
Mayor Diane Marlin asked that developers step forward with their transformative ideas for Downtown Urbana.
“The location is outstanding and could be put to many vibrant uses—especially with the upcoming MCORE reconstruction of Green Street that will lead people directly from campus to the doorstep of the hotel property in the heart of downtown Urbana,” Marlin said. “We’ve asked the community to help re-envision the nine square blocks containing Lincoln Square Mall, the Landmark Hotel, and eight acres of public parking lots. We need to be imaginative and bold and enhance this site in a way that will serve the community for the next 50 years.”
The fifth and final phase of the estimated $46.9 million Multimodal Corridor Enhancement (MCORE) project is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2020 and will reconstruct Green Street from the edge of the University of Illinois campus to Race Street in Downtown Urbana.
Chicago-based broker Rick George of Avison Young listed the hotel property for auction on the real estate website Ten-X Commercial. The listing page shows a minimum bid of $600,000 and a refundable participation deposit of $10,000.“It is a perfect time to undertake a project of this nature,” George said. “Not only is the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign tremendously attractive to developers but the medical center demand combined with the resurgence of Urbana’s downtown, lack of viable sites and a favorable financing climate will attract a high quality developer who will give back to the community an asset of which it will be very proud.”
The Urbana Landmark Hotel, 201 S Race St, is currently closed. Hotel owner Xiao Jin Yuan purchased the property in 2010 for $600,000. After making improvements and reopening most of the hotel rooms, Yuan returned over $1 million in incentives to the City after failing to also reopen the hotel’s restaurant and conference center as part of a development agreement. Yuan closed the hotel in April 2016.
Photo by Justine Bursoni