URBANA, IL – The Urbana, Ill., City Council will consider whether to issue a special use permit to allow Champaign County government to build a new highway fleet maintenance building at the southeast corner of East Main Street and Lierman Avenue, according to the Urbana/Champaign News-Gazette.

The special use permit would also give county government permission to reuse the old county nursing home complex once nursing home residents are finally moved to a new $24 million facility on the east county campus. Urbana Mayor Laurel Prussing said she expects the city council to approve the special use permit. But she said she thinks the city and county are missing an opportunity by not exploring a joint fleet maintenance facility.

“Our garage is very close to theirs, on Glover Street, and we need new space,” she said, as quoted in the Urbana/Champaign News-Gazette. “We wanted to work with them. They just decided they didn’t want to do it.”

The county expects to spend $6.4 million on the fleet maintenance facility and another $1 million on basic remodeling of the old nursing home, which would be reused for other public and quasi-public uses, including county clerk storage, offices for the county coroner, and a new home for the Children’s Advocacy Center. The old nursing home has 87,000 square feet of space.