Planning and Development Department staff was invited to tour the progress on the Costco Wholesale store being built on north Neil Street next to Marketplace Mall. Giving the tour were the new store managers who all recently relocated to Champaign. The Costco will be 185,000 square feet in a new building located where the former Bergner’s Department store once stood (demolished). The membership-based store will have 3,500 unique items within their showroom and also sell fuel at the corner of Neil and Town Center Boulevard. The City entered into an agreement with Costco in 2019 to rebate a portion of new sales tax revenues if they committed to opening the store in Champaign at this location. Costco indicated at that time there were already 2,500 members within a one-hour drive of Champaign and additional membership drives have been occurring throughout the City in the past couple months. The store will begin stocking shelves on September 22 and a ribbon cutting to open the store will be held on 
October 22, 2020.