In January of 2023, the Urbana, Illinois City Council approved an agreement to rent the 2^nd floor of the Cohen Building at 136 West Main Street for the purpose of having extra office space for their Human Resources Division.  The Cohen Building is owned by D & E Enterprises, LLC.

This summer, we began receiving tips about extravagant spending by the City of Urbana in renovating a privately owned building in the downtown area, so we requested records from the City related to this spending.

For the ~4,800 square foot space, the City Council unanimously approved a rent rate of $6,750 per month, plus $100 per month to rent a few pieces of furniture.  The ordinance voted on by the Council mentioned nothing about renovation costs, but a memo provided by City Administrator Carol Mitten did say, “The City would pay for the fit-up of the space (essentially, paint and carpeting).”  (see the memo and ordinance here)

“Paint and carpeting” makes it sound like a rather minor expense, and the City Council did not discuss this cost, nor did City staff describe it any further than that single sentence in the memo.  However, as of July of this year (when Check CU was gathering public records on this issue), the City had already sunk about $185,435.76 into the Cohen Building, and it still wasn’t ready for occupancy. 

Recorded expenses include items such as $37,700.81 paid to Mohawk Carpet, $3,366.88 in overtime pay to one particular employee, $4,200 to prep for paint, $528 in ceiling repair, and $7,314.48 for transport and installation of furniture (such as a $897.30 armless chair and $1,390.05 credenza).

The $185k figure does include $41,100 in rents paid during the renovation work, but even if that is subtracted out, $144k is still a lot of money for the City of Urbana to spend renovating and outfitting a privately owned building, and it is a lot of money to be hidden within a single sentence in a staff memo.  Since the Urbana City Council frequently debates much smaller expenditures, it seems unlikely that they realized how substantial the renovation costs would be.

An Excel file is provided below showing the expenses related to the Cohen Building as of July 2023.  A PDF file is also provided showing copies of receipts.  Check CU will be sending additional public records requests to determine how much additional spending has occurred since July.

Urbana, Illinois Cohen Building Expenses (as of July 2023).xlsx

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