Local Government

Bloomington rejects all 5 bids for Hopewell East, plans new offering in 2026

Bloomington’s redevelopment commission has rejected all five bids for Hopewell East, which was released as a $6.1 million public offering a year ago. A revised public offering is expected in 2026 as the city looks for closer alignment with its housing goals at the former hospital site.

Hopewell East is the green-shaded area

**Left:** Map by he B Square with information from the city of Bloomington. Hopewell East is shaded green. Hopewell South is shaded blue. Hopewell West is shaded red. Right: Diagram from the Hopewell masterplan.

Just about a year ago, in November 2024, Bloomington’s redevelopment commission approved the issuance of an RFP (request for proposals) for about $6 million worth of land—Hopewell East.

After starting with Hopewell South, it’s the second big chunk of the former IU Health hospital site that the city has begun trying to develop as the new Hopewell neighborhood. The city is looking to see between 850 and 1,000 new housing units built across the total Hopewell site.

Bids from five firms for Hopewell East were opened in early April of this year.

But at the RDC’s regular meeting on Monday (Nov. 17), commissioners voted unanimously to reject all five bids for Blocks 1, 2, and 3, which is the part of the neighborhood known as Hopewell East.

The decision mirrors what happened with Hopewell South, where the city has twice already thrown out all bids. But Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson’s administration is not necessarily looking to repeat the same tactic as for Hopewell South, where an approach different from a global RFP is being taken. The administration announced that pre-approved designs are planned to be offered as a way for smaller, local builders to get into the development mix for Hopewell South.

Under the master plan for the site, Hopewell East is imagined as predominantly multi-family residential. The RFP for Hopewell East puts it like this: “Mid-rise rental apartments with retail and other amenities for an active ground floor. If possible, the City would also give preferential scoring to models that incorporate home ownership where possible.”

Anna Killion-Hanson, who is the executive director of the RDC, said at Monday’s meeting that she anticipates that a new offering for Hopewell East will be made sometime in 2026, stressing that the administration is trying to “get all areas of Hopewell going as quickly as possible.” That includes Hopewell South, which is itself a major undertaking, Killion-Hanson said.

After the RDC meeting, Killion-Hanson told The B Square that the city would, in its new public offering, describe its expectations in a more granular way, to get a better match between the city’s goals and the proposals it receives.

Dana Kerr, the assistant city attorney who presented the item to the RDC on Monday said about the five proposals that were received in response the first Hopewell East RFP: “The offers that did come in were not ones that would be able to be completed based on limitations of funding and such, and so it became apparent that that public offering wasn’t necessarily realistic for that project.”

Rejecting the current bids was a necessary step to allow the city to “move forward and start evaluating other alternatives for that area,” Kerr said.

Commissioner Randy Cassady got confirmation that the bidders would be notified about the outcome of the RDC’s vote to reject all their bids.

The specific real estate for sale in the Hopewell East offering was made up of three lots totalling about 3.5 acres: Block 1 ($1,972,000); Block 2 ($1,839,000); and Block 3 ($2,325,000). That total comes to $6,136,000.

The firms making bids were: