Best Hometowns 2024: Urbana

The red, yellow and blue of the Venezuelan flag leap from the sign above the front door of Abuela’s Kitchen. If those vibrant colors and the cartoon depiction of a smiling grandmother don’t draw you in, the menu here certainly will. 

Owner Liz Davis, who grew up in Venezuela and moved to Ohio in 2018, serves classic dishes such as empanadas and burritos alongside traditional Venezuelan fare like cachapas and arepas using recipes she learned from her own grandmother. 

Photographs of landmarks from Venezuela line the walls, and the red, yellow and blue color scheme carries through to the restaurant’s interior, from the metal chairs to the light fixtures. Davis and her husband, Matt, opened the place in April 2022, at a time when downtown Urbana was undergoing  a transformation with new investment on the city’s Monument Square, a busy roundabout where U.S. routes 68 and 36 meet. 

“There are people coming here from Columbus, Marysville, Springfield, Dayton, Sidney, and they’re here all weekend,” Matt says about the influx of travelers. “They’re visiting all of these new places, all the shops, all the eateries, because it’s all different.”

Abuela’s Kitchen opened on Urbana’s Monument Square in 2022 (left). Bell’s Flowers is one of the many charming businesses dotting the city’s downtown (right). (photos by Doug Hinebaugh)

Across the street from Abuela’s Kitchen, you’ll find Urbana Brewing Co., which also opened in 2022. On another corner sits Pequeños Tapas & Wine Bar, specializing in Portuguese and Spanish cuisine. 

All three businesses occupy prime spots in Urbana’s Monument Square District, a swath of downtown (spanning two blocks on North Main Street, a block west on Miami Street and a block south on Scioto Street) named for the statue at its center that depicts a man dressed in a Civil War-era cavalry uniform. The monument, which was erected in 1872, honors 578 soldiers from Champaign County who died fighting to preserve the Union.

The city’s history goes back much further though. Urbana was founded in 1805, and it played a role in early American history. A plaque on a building that once housed Doolittle’s Tavern notes that the watering hole served as Gov. Return J. Meigs’ headquarters as Gen. William Hull quartered troops in the city during the War of 1812. 

The past is never far below the surface in Urbana, be it distant American history or its decades as a manufacturing town, which shape the city’s economic landscape to this day. Urbana’s most well-known business, Honeywell, employs around 1,000 people, operating out of the former Grimes Manufacturing Co. plant that it bought in the 1990s. 

Inventor Warren Grimes moved to Urbana in 1930 and established his business there. His invention of the airplane light — a product Honeywell still makes — spurred the federal government to fund construction of a plant in town during World War II. (Grimes is immortalized at Urbana’s Grimes Municipal Airport, home to the Champaign Aviation Museum, where the restoration of a B-17 bomber to flying shape is ongoing.)  

Volunteers work together at the Champaign Aviation Museum, painstakingly restoring a B-17 Flying Fortress from World War II to flying condition. (photo by Doug Hinebaugh) 

In addition to Honeywell, other major employers include Rittal, a German-owned electrical systems manufacturer, and Orbis, a Wisconsin-based plastics maker. Each employ about 300 people. Sutphen, a firetruck maker, brought a new 185,000-square-foot factory to Urbana in 2021 that now employs more than 200 people. 

In 2020, the headquarters of Bundy Baking Solutions relocated to Urbana. The company employs around 200 people locally and produces roughly 80% of all commercial baking pans in the United States, supplying to chains like McDonald’s and Subway. 

“Manufacturers are the lifeblood of our town,” says Mayor Bill Bean, who was first elected to the office in 2011 after years of owning a local insurance business. “Sure, that hasn’t changed all that much, other than the manufacturers themselves.”

Urbana’s revitalization has all occurred since the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008, a time when unemployment rates in the city reached as high as 13% and it lost several major manufacturers. Bean notes that the need for market-rate housing in Urbana is still a priority for the city of 11,300 residents. One step toward this goal is The Highlands development project, which is planning to build 513 dwellings (consisting of single-family homes, patio homes, town homes and apartments) on 93 acres behind the Walmart Supercenter on U.S. 36. A groundbreaking is scheduled for April 2025.

The headquarters of Bundy Baking Solutions moved to Urbana in 2020. The  The company employs produces roughly 80% of all commercial baking pans in the United States, supplying to chains like McDonald’s and Subway. (photo by Doug Hinebaugh) 

One of the most visible development projects in Urbana these days is the remaking of the former Willman Furniture building along North Main Street into a coworking space called WillWork and nine residential apartments called Willman Lofts. 

Developer Jamon Sellman and architect Sarah Mackert are leading the project. The duo has collaborated to restore several buildings in Urbana’s downtown, creating Urbana Brewing Co. and Urbana Lofts, a collection of nine luxury apartments on the square. Mackert, an Urbana native, moved back to her hometown from Columbus after founding her architectural firm there.

“I started my own practice in 2018, and I thought as an architect that I would always work in big cities,” she says. “Pretty quickly, instead of having 90% of my work in Columbus and big cities, it just went the other way.”

Built prior to 1885, the Willman Furniture Building once housed a tobacconist, a baker and a cobbler, the latter of which eventually came to own the building. He sold it to the Willman Furniture Co., which took over the space in 1956 and occupied it for nearly 70 years before it was sold in 2022. 

The Gloria Theatre was restored to have one screen and a stage that hosts live performances (left). Historic architecture can be found throughout the the city’s downtown and contributes to its charm (right). (photos by Doug Hinebaugh)

Just a quarter mile down the street, on the opposite side of the Monument Square District, is the Gloria Theatre, which opened in 1904. In 2014, the GrandWorks Foundation restored the property to a one-screen theater with a stage for live performances. The theater hosts screenings of new films, traveling shows and concerts, and theater programs for local students. 

When it comes to schools, Urbana enrolls around 1,700 students from the nearly 8-square-mile community at two adjoining K-8 buildings and a high school building, which all underwent renovations that were completed in 2018 following the passage of a school levy four years earlier. 

Education has deep roots in the city, evident by Urbana University, which was founded in 1850 by Rev. James Parke Stuart, a member of the Swedenborgian Church, a religious society that was formed in Europe in the late 1780s. (The school closed in 2020 due to low enrollment after the pandemic.)

Another famous Swedenborgian with ties to the college is John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed. His memory is preserved by way of a museum dedicated to his life and legacy. When the university closed, the museum was moved into a historic home off campus. Today, the kid-friendly space honors the efforts of John Chapman, not just as the folklore legend he has become but also as a real-life Swedenborgian missionary. Like many destinations in Urbana, the Johnny Appleseed Educational Center and Museum ties together the town’s spirited history with the excitement of something new. 

“I’m just so thrilled that people are actively interested in us and our reopening,” says Johnny Appleseed Educational Center and Museum director and curator Mikaela Prescott. “It never fails to amaze me how excited people are that we’re here.”

More Best Hometowns 2024-25: Bryan | Hilliard | McConnelsville | Millersburg | Urbana

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