Country Fair Shopping Center — Local services in Champaign

4 year Update: My review is of the Shopping Center - not the retailers or tenants therein. I wish the absentee owners of Country Fair Shopping Center would read this. New update: 9/22: From the nearby collector roads (Mattis Ave. & IL Rt.10, this low-ground strip mall isn't too bad looking. They have given it a facelift to the facade not too long ago. You know the style - stucco over Styrofoam. It looks clean and stylish (from the highway). When you get up-close it is an awful, litter strewn, broken, ugly place. I wish a local developer would buy it so that it can be redeveloped and properly cared for.

8/22 This place is not nice. Champaign is a nice town with this giant slab wasting a massive area at a major intersection. I can imagine a hundred things that would be better than the expanse of broken, unused parking and a few low-end retail establishments. I want to be clear - I don't really have nothing against the businesses in this area. I do shop at several of them. The non-retail tenants are not to blame for the overall nature of the place. The owners are! It's the strip mall with a massive, broken concrete & asphalt parking lot. A lack of care of the area that is my complaint. This part of town can get better in the near-term future or it can get worse. I see this mall as a pressure point pushing towards worse! I blame disinterested, out-of-state owners.

**Original post from c.2018 follows: I shop here but the area is a bit of a rat hole. Giant lots with broken asphalt and lots of litter. Ugly, out-of-date store fronts. Absentee landlords who don't care about the looks or quality of a huge intersection in town. It should be so much better! I know the City Planners would like it to be but it is private property and the owner(s) seem...

I've noticed all types of comments, both good and bad. I started coming here when they were still on Green St. Been a donor here for 20 years. Frequently two donations every week. Over this time I've seen more than I can recall come and go. I've seen both good and bad. In general my experiences here have been positive. Yes, I've also had negative experiences. That is going to happen with 20 years coming here. I take notice though to what goes on around me. The turnover here is terrible. The turnover is also due to the management staff. Extremely good employees have walked out because of management, one manager mostly responsible. I no longer come here. Have for 6 months. I doubt I will ever return. In more recent time the screening staff is extremely lazy. Rarely are there enough employees to manage donors. Wait times seem to increase. It does help if you make an appointment. However, I've still had to wait 30 minutes more even with the appointment. I have had to call the front desk to get someone to disconnect me, an hour after I finished. Eventually enough is enough. My 3 star review is right on. Even though my experience here has mostly been positive, it is not like that for everyone. I had been coming in for 20 years though. Of the donors and employees, I've been here longer than any of them. I still donate...

The parking for Karen's Closet and Dollar Tree are absolutely horrendous. The parking section is too small for the number of people who shop there. The larger lot, which goes largely unused because of their lack of stores, is in need of repair, and the whole thing is poorly planned considering the two main draws for the whole place are Dollar Tree and Karen's Closet. In addition to the poorly planned parking lot, the handicapped spot is not convenient for Dollar Tree, and if you have more than one bag from that store, because you can't take their shopping carts outside, it's a bit difficult to get to...