Bloomington RDC weighs $45K payment to CASA to vacate Showers West building

At its regular Monday meeting, Bloomington’s redevelopment commission (RDC) got an update about continuing efforts to move all private tenants out of the RDC-owned Showers West building—including a specific proposal that would pay CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) an agreed amount to vacate its current space.

Showers West is in the same historic former furniture factory brick complex as city hall.

The proposal from CASA includes a payment of $45,751 and two parking passes in the Fourth Street garage for one year. A non-reserved parking pass in the garage for 24/7 access has an annual market value of $1,428. According to Rice, the proposed monetary figure is intended to cover: moving costs; lost staff time, and the higher rent anticipated at CASA’s next location.

The parking passes would make sense for CASA, given the nonprofit’s planned mid-March move into Fountain Square Mall, which is connected to the parking garage through a skywalk.

No vote was taken on the proposal, but Rice told commissioners she believes that the package suggested by CASA is “a fair amount” and asked for some indication of support so she could finalize documents for formal approval at the RDC’s next meeting, which falls on March 2. When Rice asked for objections after her briefing, none were voiced.

Tia Arthur, executive director of CASA, attended Monday’s meeting.

Also attending Monday’s meeting was Bloomington Board of Realtors CEO Kristen Weida, whose organization is still a tenant of Showers West and is trying to negotiate an exit deal, even as a lawsuit BBOR filed over the situation is pending. (BBOR is now called the Indiana Uplands Realtor Association.)

BBOR and Warrant Technologies both filed lawsuits contending that the city violated the terms of its leases when it tried to use a theory of inverse condemnation to “take” the property.

At Monday’s RDC meeting, Rice briefed commissioners on the status of the lawsuits, which included hearings in front of circuit court judge Kara Krothe last year in early December, on cross motions for summary judgement.

The reason for the fight with tenants to get them to leave is connected to a legal requirement the city has to follow with respect to the use of the property. The Showers West purchase was financed with bonds issued for capital and public-safety purposes tied to city operations.

The late 2022 bond issuance covered the cost of the Showers West as well as other public safety projects, and came with a legal requirement that the building purchased with the money be put to a public purpose. That public purpose, as envisioned by then-mayor John Hamilton’s administration, had been to house the city’s fire department administrative offices and the city’s main police station.

The fire department was moved into Showers West. But Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson’s administration, which took over at the start of 2024, opted not to pursue a move by the police department. That eliminated the immediate urgency for tenants to leave, which stemmed from the practical need to make way for a specific city use. But the legal pressure remained for ending the leases to private tenants.

At a Bloomington RDC meeting in June 2025 Rice said the city’s bond counsel had advised that leasing the space to private tenants is not consistent with the public-use purpose of the bonds. The view of the city’s bond counsel is that it does not count as a public purpose for the government to collect rent from tenants and use the proceeds of the rent for a public purpose.