Bloomington RDC to vote on resolution rejecting all Showers West bids, police move looks unlikely
Now added to the agenda for the Bloomington redevelopment commission’s (RDC’s) 5 p.m. Monday meeting is a resolution that rejects all of the construction bids for the Showers West renovation.
The revised agenda was released to RDC members around 6:45 p.m. on Friday.
The resolution rejecting all construction bids reflects an apparent decision by new Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson to change course from her predecessor, John Hamilton’s plan, to move both the fire department administration and police operations into the Showers West portion of the city hall building.
The city purchased Showers West about a year ago—with approval from the city council coming on a 5–4 vote.
A “whereas” clause of the resolution says: “[T]he City of Bloomington and the RDC have determined that while the bidders were responsive, they no longer meet the vision and scope of the Project.”
City attorney Larry Allen confirmed to The B Square on Friday that the added resolution reflected the discussion of a working group appointed by Thomson to review the Showers West project. Allen confirmed that the group had met at 4 p.m. on Friday, before the resolution on construction bids was added.
The working group includes city staff as well as two city councilmembers—Isabel Piedmont-Smith and Isak Asare.
According to a Jan. 5 city news release, about the creation of the Showers West working group—there’s another group focused on the Hopewell neighborhood redevelopment—it is supposed to provide “a fresh perspective and independent review of the projects and advise [Thomson] on next steps.”
The most likely change in vision and scope of the project is the elimination of Showers West as a new location for the police operations. The idea had been to move all of the operations that currently run out of the 3rd Street police headquarters into Showers West.
The change in plan would be consistent with the position of the police union, which has, from the time the idea was first floated, resisted the move—citing security concerns about Showers West as well as entrance and egress issues.
F.O.P. Lodge 88 president Paul Post confirmed to The B Square that Thomson and deputy mayor Gretchen Knapp had, at the end of January, both attended roll calls of police officers, and the topic of Showers West came up several times.
Post wrote in an email message to The B Square: “We have continued to express our concerns with that proposed project…and appreciate the time they took listening to us.”
Likely to be preserved in some form would be the renovation of some space in Showers West for fire department administration, including fire inspection services and mobile integrated health services. That would likely require some amount of redesign and rebidding of the work.
At last last Wednesday’s (Feb. 1) special meeting of Bloomington’s redevelopment commission, Allen said that the use of Shower West for fire department administration was “still very much on the table.”
The renovation and reconstruction work for the Fire Station 1 headquarters on 4th Street—to repair damage from the 2021 Kirkwood Flood—has been underway since the end of the year.
The old Bunger & Robertson building at 4th Street and College Avenue is serving as a temporary fire station for both operations and administration. The Station 1 renovation work is supposed to be completed by the end of 2024. While the old Station 1 design included some limited space for administration, the new design does not include any such space.
So even though by year’s end, the temporary fire station location would no longer be needed for operations, the need for administrative space would not be met by a re-opened Station 1.
Factoring into the real estate mix is the possibility of using the city-owned former Bunger & Robertson space for the expansion of the Monroe Convention Center.
The possibility of a recommended action from the administration to reject all the construction bids was foreshadowed at last Wednesday’s (Feb. 1) special meeting of Bloomington’s redevelopment commission. At the special meeting, Allen ticked through the options the RDC members would have on at their Monday (Feb. 1) meeting, which included rejecting all the bids.
The purpose of the special meeting was to approve payouts for the early lease terminations of some tenants.
The Showers West construction bids to be awarded total around $12.7 million. The winning bids, which included a base plus some additional money for an IT room were: SCS Construction Services, Inc. (general trades) for $4,623,400; Multicraft Fire Protection (fire protection) for $310,500; Harrell-Fish Inc (mechanical and plumbing) for $4,128,000; and Cassady Electric (electric) for $3,655,900.
The contracts had appeared on the agenda for the Bloomington RDC’s mid-December meeting, but did not have majority support for consideration at that time. Some RDC members wanted new Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson’s administration to review the contracts before moving forward.
Participating in the vote on Monday’s resolution to reject all the bids will be former city councilmember Sue Sgambelluri, who was appointed to Bloomington’s RDC by Thomson to replace Sarah Bauerle Danzman.
As a city councilmember last year, Sgambelluri was one of four who voted against the purchase of the Showers West portion of the building.
