Charlene Poindexter, a graduate student at the University Illinois Springfield, decided to experiment Monday night with a new recipe -- baked chicken and mashed potatoes -- to break in the kitchen at her new studio apartment in downtown Springfield.
She and a couple dozen others moved in over the weekend at The Villas Downtown, a 79-unit complex at Fourth and Madison streets.
Iowa-based Bluffstone LLC built the apartments geared toward graduate students and young professionals working downtown.
That demographic has long been cited as one of the keys to revitalizing the downtown area.
“We have 300 graduate interns, most in state government, and they come to us and say we can’t find affordable housing downtown,” said Van Vieregge, assistant vice chancellor for student services at UIS.
He sees the apartments as a solution to that.
This story was reported in The State Journal-Register on August 15, 2016.
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