Bloomington OKs extra cost of asbestos removal for Hopewell demolition, work set to start Friday

Google Street View looking southeast of 615 1st Street.

Buildings shaded in green are authorized for demolition. The building shaded orange is 615 1st Street and would need to be reviewed by the historic preservation commission before demolition. The building shaded red is 714 S. Rogers St.

Area to be demolished as shown in the Hopewell neighborhood master plan. https://bloomingtonhospitalsite.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2021.01.13_BHRU-Reuse-Master-Plan-2-pg-per-screen.pdf#page=33

At its Monday meeting, Bloomington’s redevelopment commission (RDC) approved a $12,100 bump to the previously approved $353,052 contract with Renascent for the demolition of 10 buildings on the south side of 1st Street.

The demolition work, which is supposed to start Friday (Feb. 9) according to a city of Bloomington news release, is intended to make a clean slate for developers who want to respond to a public offering of  the property as part of the planned new Hopewell neighborhood.

The area with the buildings to be demolished is just part of the Hopewell land, which includes the former site of the IU Health hospital. Bloomington’s RDC bought the property for $6.5 million, in a deal that finally closed late last year.

It’s still an open question whether all 10 buildings will be demolished, because one of them is still under review by the city’s historic preservation commission (HPC). The house in question  is at 615 W. 1st Street, which is described in the HPC’s Jan. 25 meeting information packet as “a highly intact California style bungalow,” which was built in the 1920s.

At the HPC’s Jan. 25 meeting, the HPC voted to recommend that the interim director of the HAND (housing and neighborhood development) department extend by 30 days the demolition delay under which the property had been put. Interim HAND director Anna Killion-Hanson followed that recommendation, which buys the house a little more time.

Last year, the staff recommendation from the city’s historic program manager, Gloria Colom Braña, had been to release the property for demolition—but to move it to another location, if possible. Colom Braña left that job in mid-December.

Her replacement, Noah Sandweiss, has now been hired, and will be able to attend the next HPC meeting. Sandweiss is an architectural historian who has a masters degree in historic preservation and conservation from the University of Vermont and an undergraduate degree in history and archaeology from Indiana University. Sandweiss’s father, Eric, served on the HPC from 2012 to 2014 and on the RDC from 2018 to 2020.

At the HDC’s Jan. 25 meeting, RDC member Randy Cassady addressed the group, after saying he was speaking just as a member of the public, not as a member of the RDC. He encouraged looking at the possibility of moving the house to a different location, saying, “The house is in the wrong place for the redevelopment of Hopewell, but the bones and the structure of the residence itself seem to be good.”

Cassady said that the RDC owns some property that is not in the Hopewell neighborhood, that might be considered as a spot to move the house.

Renescent’s project manager, Anthony Larson, told the HPC that the cost to move the house just across the street, would be around $30,000—the greater the distance the greater the cost. The line-item bid by Renascent for the demolition of the 615 W. 1st Street house was $8,700.

The HPC voted to adopt a statement of support for the idea that the city of Bloomington would work together with Bloomington Restorations, Inc. to find a way to preserve the house.

Deb Kunce, with JS Held, which is the firm serving as project manager for the Hopewell project, told RDC members at Monday’s meeting that the request for proposals for the demolition work was consciously made with the idea that the selected contractor would do the testing for asbestos, instead of first testing for asbestos, then issuing the RFP. That allowed the demolition contractor, which turned out to be Renascent, to be brought on board sooner, Kunce said.

Once Renascent had the testing done, it found asbestos containing materials (ACMs) in the tape and floor mastic at several of the properties that it is supposed to demolish: 717-719 1st Street; the Fairview out building; 615 1st Street; and 619 1st Street.

Also at Monday’s meeting, the RDC approved an extension of the security contract with Marshall Security for the properties to be demolished, through May 1, 2024. The contract extension includes an increase in the patrols from 12 hours per day to 24 hours per day.

The amount of the security contract extension was $68,796. That brings the total amount authorized for monitoring the vacant buildings for break-ins and vandalism, to $234,495.

Hopewell is one of the projects for which new Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson announced on Jan. 5 that she would be forming a working group to review. Responding to a B Square question this week, interim communications director Angela Van Rooy indicated that Thomson is still working on putting together the Hopewell working group, and that when its membership is set, the names of the members will announced.