Five years and one pandemic later, a look at Carle at the Fields

Sep. 10—Want to purchase today's print edition? Here's a map of single-copy locations.

CHAMPAIGN — Another day, another thousand patients.

Five years after move-ins began at Carle at the Fields on the far southwest edge of Champaign, it's impossible to put a number on how much traffic finds its way there every day.

But a portion includes at least 1,000 patients a day — the number of visits to the three Carle at the Fields medical facilities operated by Carle Health and Christie Clinic, by their own counts.

Still more folks live in the development's 100-plus apartments over commercial spaces, stay at its on-site Hampton Inn & Suites hotel, and visit or come to work at a handful of restaurants, shops and other businesses there.

That's all created some on-site customers for Dan Epstein's shop, RuggedOutdoors, which opened at Carle at the Fields about two years ago.

One of the few retailers there, Epstein said he's been happy with his location.

"We're seeing good traffic," he said.

For RuggedOutdoors, business tends to pick up at the end of the day when people are getting out of work and at meal times, when restaurants in the area are busier, he said.

"We also receive a lot of traffic from the hotel," he said.

Hickory River Smokehouse, which opened a location at Carle at the Fields a bit over a year ago, is doing very well there, owner Mike Madigan said.

"It is everything I had expected," he said.

A lot of the restaurant's traffic is coming from Carle and Christie patients, he said, but customers are also coming from surrounding neighborhoods, some of them even dining in the afternoon.

"We have a lot of really nice neighborhoods close by that have a lot of folks that are maybe retired or close to it, so the afternoon business is better than any of my other restaurants," Madigan said.

So successful were the live-music events that Hickory River offered one Sunday a month this summer that Madigan said he's making plans to double or triple that for next year.

"It has basically made good Sundays great," he said.

One early retail tenant, The McGuire Home Collection Boutique, opened in late 2020 and closed a year-and-a-half later. Its space remains vacant.

Founder Nicole McGuire declined to talk about the location, but said she closed for personal reasons involving a relocation to Dallas.

"My type of business is better suited in a higher-population area," she said.

By the numbers

Carle at the Fields encompasses 210 acres at one quadrant of the Interstate 57/Curtis Road interchange — 80 acres of which have been developed to date. Another 10 are designated for future mixed use/retail and the rest of the property remains undeveloped, according to Carle Health.

Carle and Christie, which compete locally for patients, each have a clinic building at Carle at the Fields, and those clinics stand on either side of the outpatient surgery center they jointly own.

Carle says its providers at the Fields see more than 500 patients a day at both physician offices and the surgery center.

Christie says it also sees at least 500 patients a day at its Fields clinic alone, not including those coming for procedures at the surgery center.

Christie has liked this arrangement so much, it also joined Carle at its new Danville medical campus, Carle at the Riverfront.

"Christie Clinic at the Fields has been a successful development, and most recently, a model we duplicated with a new development in Danville, Christie Clinic at the Riverfront," said Christie CEO Kenny Bilger.

Move-ins of employees began at Carle at the Fields in early 2018, about two years after the land was annexed into the city of Champaign.

Employees from 10 of Carle's leased locations throughout Champaign-Urbana were consolidated at this new development — which also includes a 340,000-square-foot Carle administrative building where, among others, Health Alliance Medical Plans employees now work.

Carle at the Fields was rolled out with expectations that it would help jump-start even more development at the other three quadrants of the Curtis Road exit.

T.J. Blakeman, the city's senior planner for economic development, still looks for those other three quadrants to be developed.

"But I don't think there was any expectation that they were all going to be built out at the same time," he said.

Blakeman says Carle at the Fields has "absolutely met expectations."

The entire development was master-planned, with higher standards for the buildings and streetscape, he said.

"Carle met those standards, and it really shows," he said.

Former Champaign City Council member Greg Stock, who was on the council in 2016, says Carle at the Fields is like "a whole little town out there."

It was originally believed more development at the other interchange quadrants would come faster, he said, and then the COVID-19 pandemic came along.

"But I think, overall, given the totality of what's gone on, it's gone pretty well," Stock said.

Carle pleased

Overall, Carle officials are happy with how Carle at the Fields has progressed, according to Nick Crompton, vice president of facilities and construction.

"We really wanted this to be something we could be proud of, that the community could be proud of," he said.

Many tenants have been there since the beginning, and managed to keep going there throughout the pandemic, he said.

The apartments are largely full, the medical facilities are meeting growth projections, and while there are a couple of commercial space vacancies, "generally, the commercial has done well overall," Crompton said.

The Carle administrative building currently houses fewer than the 1,000-plus employees it was designed for, largely due to the shift to working from home brought about by the pandemic, he said. Some employees still work hybrid schedules at home and at the office, and the number of people in the building every day has been growing, he said.

The amenities at Carle at the Fields aren't all under a roof, according to Crompton. The development also has more than 2 miles of walking trails, plus ponds and some no-mow prairie grasses and wildflowers.

"We wanted our team members during the day to be able to go out and access the outdoors," Crompton said.

Same goes for patients and family members.

"If they're anxious, they have a spot to get a little respite," he said.

Crompton said the development occurring around Carle at the Fields has also been exciting — for example, Regency Multifamily's new upscale The Landing at Legends apartment development, bringing more people to the area.

Carle plans to continue working with Green Street Realty to fill spaces at the Fields and will also be looking for more opportunities to drive community events there, Crompton said.

Green Street Realty, which handles the leasing of the apartments and commercial spaces at the Fields, is looking to develop another building there when it secures the right tenant. The building will go where the new location for Destihl restaurant and brewpub was going to be before Destihl canceled its plans.

"We have to get the right tenant out there. We've had interest," said Shannon Collins, chief acquisitions officer and lead broker for the firm's Emerald Partners.

What Green Street Realty would like to see more of at Carle at the Fields is retail, especially higher-end retail — for example, a higher-end apparel store and small specialty grocery and some event space, given the location right off the interstate, Collins said.

The goal is to continue that upscale environment, she said.

"We've been particular with tenants," she said.

Meanwhile, several other tenants at Carle at the Fields seem to be as happy with their locations as Madigan and Epstein are.

That includes Allie Weber, who opened another Modern Family Dinners location at the Fields and says much of her business comes from word of mouth, and County Market owner Niemann Foods, which says it's "very happy" with its Haymakers gas station and convenience store location at the Fields.

And Overtime Nutrition's location is getting a lot of its business from employees across the campus, according to Manager Josylyn Warfel.

"I'd say 85 percent of our customers are Carle employees," she said.