Champaign
“Our Champaign office is proud to have been a part, for nearly twenty years, of the continued growth and improvements at the home location of the state’s flagship university, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. We have all found a rewarding home in the diverse and active community. From this central Illinois location we are also able to serve a number of other downstate clients on a variety of exciting projects and we look forward to being part of the area’s future.”
The popular image of the Champaign-Urbana is perhaps inevitably associated with the University of Illinois, but the “Twin Cities” metropolitan area has long qualified for “best kept secret” status. Maybe not for long.
Two hours south of Chicago, the area is home to both a lively arts scene and a thriving technology sector (national media regularly rank it in the top ten of tech cities outside the Silicon Valley). Country Home calls it a top-25 green city and Midwest Living named it their “Greatest Food Town.”
While Champaign is “small-town” enough to rank near the top of US cities for commuters who walk to work, an urban feel has been building with booming development of the Campustown neighborhood. Champaign’s musical talent draws national attention with a variety of emo, college rock, and black metal acts (we’re still home to the acclaimed Polyvinyl Record Co., who have since opened offices in Berkeley, Chicago, Portland, and New York). The four-acre, five-venue Krannert Center for the Performing Arts is considered one of the nation’s top live arts locations, hosting over 400 performances annually. And “Ebertfest” (Roger Ebert’s Film Festival, held every April) cherry-picks Hollywood’s overlooked gems.
The active sports crowd goes in for the annual Illinois Marathon. More sedentary outdoor pleasures are to be had in the lovely Robert Allerton Park of formal gardens, woodlands, and prairie.