As we have previously announced, ILEAS received a $3 million grant from the State of Illinois through the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO) to remodel the ILEAS Training Center (ITC).  The grant is routed from through the City of Urbana to ILEAS as a sub-grantee.  ILEAS is currently awaiting the final approval from DCEO.  However, we have already issued an RFP for architectural services and selected IGW Architecture (IGW) from Urbana as the project architect.  The project budget will be $2.975 million ($25,000 retained by Urbana for grant processing).  Based on a previous feasibility study, the remodeling will focus on:

• Remodeling and upgrading the basement storage area in order to safely store and secure communications technology
• Expand and resurface the north parking lot to accommodate more vehicles
• Demolish individual rooms and remove the ceiling in the B Wing of the building in order to accommodate more versatile scenario-based training events 
• Remove the remaining asbestos in the building 
• Expand the shipping/receiving area 
• Create a new "laboratory" style classroom where training can be conducted that requires the ability to be cleaned easily.  This includes the annual EOD robot maintenance training, crime scene processing and other training that cannot be conducted in a normal carpeted classroom 
• Clean-up of one of the five enclosed courtyards to be used for outdoor training not visible to the public

Bids for the asbestos removal will be going out within a week or two and the search for a contractor for the parking expansion and the general contractor will follow shortly afterwards.  Once the remodeling is completed, ILEAS will have a community-wide open house to highlight what is available at the ITC for professional groups to rent/lease.