Old B Square

Bloomington BZA to hear height variance for 5-story project on Kirkwood, by CVS near Uptown Café

The latest timeline for an expansion to the Monroe Convention Center puts the completion at the end of 2026.

If all goes as planned, attendees of events in the expanded facility might have a new dining option in downtown Bloomington. The new eatery is part of a project to be built on what is now a surface parking lot for a dozen and a half cars, next to the CVS at Washington Street and Kirkwood Avenue.

The restaurant is planned to take up all of the ground floor and part of the second, as part of a new five-story, 14-unit residential condominium building. The restaurant space will also be a condo.

The ONE15 project, which is now named after the Kirkwood address, is proposed by Randy Lloyd (Clearpath Services). It appears on next Thursday’s (July 25) agenda for Bloomington’s board of zoning appeals (BZA).

[Updated Tuesday, July 23, 2024: Thursday’s BZA meeting has been canceled. Based on a B Square phone call to the city’s planning and transportation department, the meeting was canceled, because not enough of the five members were able to attend in person. The required number is three. Items on the July 25 agenda will be put off until the Aug. 22 BZA meeting.]

The BZA agenda item will count as newsy, both for devotees of local planning and patrons of Bloomington’s restaurant culture.

For land use mavens: A previous request for a variance from a 50-percent non-residential ground floor requirement has been swapped out for a request for a height variance.

For foodies: The restaurant space is planned to be developed by longtime owners of The Uptown Café, Michael and Galen Cassady. The plan is not to move the existing restaurant, but rather to start a new one, and to operate both.

Height variance

Lloyd’s effort to develop the surface parking lot dates back more than a half decade, at least to 2018.

The 2022 version of the project was denied a requested variance by the BZA—from the requirement that at least 50 percent of the ground floor square footage be designed for non-residential and non-parking uses.

Lloyd won a lawsuit over the denial, and the BZA was supposed to re-hear the requested variance from the 50-percent requirement.

For the revised project, there’s a restaurant that takes up the ground floor—and part of the second floor. That means no variance from the 50-percent requirement is needed.

But putting a restaurant on the ground floor does not handle the actual problem that the 50-percent variance was meant to solve—which was parking spaces for the owners of the residential condos. To make the project viable, Lloyd had wanted to use more than 50-percent of the ground floor for parking.

How does ONE15 deal with the parking challenge? By digging. The 26 private parking spaces for owners of the condos are designed for the basement level, with an entrance off the north alley.

The project architect is Ben Kunkel with designer Lindsay Taylor Bell.

But the result of the revisions to the project is that it it’s too tall to meet the requirements of the city’s unified development ordinance (UDO).

The ONE15 proposal is to use sustainable development incentives and affordable housing incentives (payment-in-lieu), to add two stories to what is allowed by right.

Bloomington’s UDO allows 12 feet for each additional story. Added to the 40-foot limit in the mixed-use downtown with courthouse square character overlay zoning district (MDCS) that makes for a maximum height of 64 feet.

But the building is designed to be 70.5 feet tall. That’s why a height variance is needed.

In connection with the previous iteration of the project, the BZA granted a variance from the first floor façade large display window variance requirement. And that variance is incorporated into the new proposal.

The petitioner’s statement included in the BZA meeting information packet describes the strategies that ONE15 will use to promote owner-occupancy of the condos.

One is that the condominium association documents will prohibit owners from offering units for short-term rental such as Airbnb and Vrbo. A second strategy is that the condo association will prohibit occupancy by more than two unrelated adults.

Lloyd told The B Square that if all goes as planned, construction could start in late fall or early winter of this year. That would mean the space for the new restaurant could be ready by the end of 2026.

Restaurant space

The Uptown Café is located on the opposite side of Kirkwood Avenue, maybe 100 feet west west of the planned new condo building.

A morning or evening visit to the Uptown can provide sightings of current and former local elected or appointed officials, business leaders, artists, basketball coaches, and other notables around town.

Also often visible, moving through the Uptown are Michael and Galen Cassady, the father-son pair that own the place.

When they spoke with The B Square last week, Michael recalled starting the Uptown in the location where Rockit’s Famous Pizza is now, on the east side of Walnut Street, between 6th and 7th streets. “I’ve gone from 30 seats to 325,” Michael said.

The 325 seats include 250 inside and the rest outside—the exact number depends on the status of the city’s outside dining program in any given season. In past years, all of Kirkwood Avenue has been made available for outside seating. This year it’s just the on-street parking spaces that are available.

Michael cites 1976 as the year when the restaurant first opened, noting it’s the same year that Indiana University’s men’s basketball team won the NCCA championship.

A 1978 Herald-Telephone article describes the Uptown’s menu as including “specialties such as crepes, quiche (an egg and cheese pie) and delicious omelets…homemade soups, home-fried potatoes, bagels, cream cheese, and tuna and bacon-Iettuce-and-tomato sandwiches.”

The article describes Uptown’s atmosphere as “warm, cozy and personalized.” At Uptown, the article says, “the patron is greeted with a smile of friendliness and a feeling of secure relaxation.”

In 1985, Cassady moved the Uptown to the current location on Kirkwood Avenue.

The Cassadys are eager to own their own place and to design everything to their own specifications, starting from scratch.

Not many details are settled for the new restaurant, they said. But they are not moving the Uptown to the new space. The Uptown will continue as it is now.

The menu, the concept, and the name for the new restaurant have not yet been decided. Michael said, “It’s definitely going to be different than the Uptown.” It will have similar price point, but will be conceptually different from the Uptown, he said.

One thing Michael said will be the same for the new place: “It will still be comfortable.”

Asked about the market demand for downtown Bloomington dining and the sustainability of an additional restaurant, Galen pointed out that when Indiana University is in session, there can be an hour-long wait for a table at the Uptown—on a regular weekend.

“We close out reservations weeks, or sometimes months ahead of time, depending on certain weekends,” Galen said. That’s not even considering graduation weekends.

Thursday’s meeting of Bloomington’s board of zoning of appeals has a full agenda. It starts at 5:30 p.m. in the city council chambers of city hall.