Bloomington Transit board OKs $3.6M land buy for ops center after getting IDEM ‘comfort letter’

The Bloomington Transit board has approved a resolution authorizing the purchase of a $3.6 million property on the corner of Curry Pike and Profile Parkway for the development of a new administration, operations, and maintenance complex. The approval came at the board’s monthly meeting on Tuesday (June 23) on a unanimous vote.

The board also authorized general manager John Connell to close the purchase of the property from seller BB Profile, LLC, which acquired the land from ABB, Inc. in 2021 for $2.15 million.

The property was previously owned by Westinghouse, and in local shorthand, the company is associated with PCB contamination tied to industrial activity in the 1950s through the 1970s.

It has taken more than a year for BT to work out the details on the purchase. In August 2025, BT was informed that one of ten boring tests on the location returned positive for PCBs, which are toxic industrial chemicals (polychlorinated biphenyls) once widely used in electrical equipment, coolants, and other applications.

In late 2025, despite environmental concerns, BT signed an option to purchase agreement for the property, putting up $100,000, which gave BT a six-month window to execute the purchase. Connell said at that time that BT knew the exact location and magnitude of the contamination, and that information would be factored into the project’s design and costs.

At its March 24 meeting, the BT board was told that an appraisal had been completed that put the value of the property at $3.6 million.

The next step at that stage was for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) to issue a “comfort letter,” which would provide BT some protections from environmental liability with respect to hazardous substances found on the site. IDEM issued that comfort letter on May 28, putting together the pieces for BT to finally close the purchase.

However, according to the comfort letter, certain components of the Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) will no longer be valid after July 22. That, along with the requirement that the purchase agreement option be exercised by July 10, gave the BT board impetus to make a decision at its Tuesday meeting.

Board treasurer Doug Horn expressed some caution about the situation.

“We really have not done anything beyond the requisite notice to the public, and in that this is such a turning the corner event for the corporation, do we have latitude to look at this? Perhaps next month’s meeting, allowing public time to look at the agreement, and the nuts and bolts of it, or are we so strapped for time related to various issues that we need to act this evening?” Horn asked.

To address Horn’s concern, board chair James McLary proposed an amendment to the motion to approve the purchase, to require that a public discussion be held at the next BT board meeting after the purchase is done.

That amendment passed 3-2, meaning the board will hold a public discussion to make the public aware about the purchase. Dissenting on the vote were Kent McDaniel and Nancy Obermeyer. Besides McLary and Horn, it was supported by Don Griffin.

That was followed by the vote on the actual resolution to approve the purchase agreement and authorize Connell to close the purchase.

The new operations center will replace the facility at Grimes Lane, which includes an administration building owned by BT, and real estate owned by Indiana University, which also houses its bus fleet at Grimes Lane, alongside BT buses. The BT downtown transit center, where most bus routes start and end, will not be affected by the new project.