The Tower at 3rd
The newly-renamed Tower at 3rd (formerly Champaign Hilton, Century 21, Quality Inn, University Inn, Presidential Tower) is located in the Campus town district and is over twenty stories high. A hotel until 2001, it currently houses student apartments and several University of Illinois offices, including the Office of Continuing Education. The Tower and a massive art-deco apartment complex a few blocks away form a scenic duo in the central of Campus town with a city feel to it.
 
Downtown
In the 1980s part of the downtown Champaign area (Neil St.) was closed to vehicular traffic to create a pedestrian mall, but this short-lived experiment was scrapped when business declined. Initiated by Jon "Cody" Sokolski of One Main Development, the downtown area of Champaign was recently the target of a largely successful revitalization effort designed to bring more businesses into the area and return the downtown district to the center of city life. In addition to efforts which restored the facades on many of the historic buildings, additional construction projects including restaurants, bars, shops, office space, and condominiums, have recently increased the size of the downtown area, while still maintaining the distinct turn-of-the-century architecture associated with the city.
 
 Downtown Champaign.The new growth in downtown Champaign has coincided with the larger growth of the "north Prospect" shopping district on the city's northern boundary. The growth in the north Prospect area relies, in part, on leapfrogging, moving out to the countryside and developing more remote farm land that eventually connects to the main development. Given the overwhelming success of such suburban shopping areas nationally, new development within any city center represents an alternative to the dominant movement out and away from the cities. In April 2007 One Main Development broke ground on a nine story $30 million dollar mixed use project, the largest ever for downtown Champaign, to be located at the corner of Neil and Church Street. M2 on Neil will feature ground floor retail, office and 50 condominiums. The project is expected to be complete in late 2008. The City of Champaign is also constructing a six story parking structure on Hill Street. Construction on this project is expected to begin in January and be completed by Fall 2008.
 
 Boardman's Art Theatre
 Boardman's Art Theatre, which shows critically-acclaimed independent and foreign films, was built in 1913 as the Park Theatre. It has since undergone several changes in name and repertoire, including a phase from 1969 to 1986, in which it showed adult films.5 The theatre is the only single-screen movie theater still in existence operating daily as a movie theatre in Champaign-Urbana.
 
Historic Virginia Theatre
The Historic Virginia Theatre is a recently-restored 1525-seat movie theater, dating back to the 1920s. It has an ornate, Spanish Renaissance-influenced interior, full stage and dressing rooms, and an elaborate Wurlitzer pipe organ. It hosts Roger Ebert's Overlooked Film Festival 2 and has a single 56' x 23' screen. The theater does not have a daily show schedule, but schedules special screenings and live performances several times each month.