CIB pushes for progress on hotel deal to support Bloomington Convention Center expansion, could come on April 7

Some movement on the development of a hotel to support the expansion of the Bloomington Convention Center might appear on the next meeting agenda for the city's redevelopment commission (RDC), on April 7.

The facility was called the Monroe Convention Center, until it was renamed earlier this year.

Since October 2024, the land deal that has been anticipated would be between Dora Hospitality, the CIB's favored hotelier and Bloomington's RDC—for the real estate north of the existing convention center on the former Bunger and Robertson property.

Even if it's not certain that there will be progress to report in a little over a week, that possibility was still the big news from Wednesday's meeting of Monroe County's capital improvement board (CIB). The CIB is the governing body that is overseeing the development of the convention center expansion.

The former Bunger and Robertson property was purchased by the RDC in two separate transactions, from two different owners, for use in connection with the convention center. The first purchase came in 2019. Both purchases were made when former mayor John Hamilton was still in office. He served as mayor through the end of 2023.

On Wednesday, reporting to the CIB the possibility of some progress on a land deal was Jane Kupersmith, who is Bloomington's director of economic and sustainable development.

Kupersmith did not hype the possibility of a deal in the works. She led off by saying, "I think the broad headlines for the hotel update are that there is no formal change in status at this time." She described how the city staff are continuing with due diligence work, saying "These are just very complex deals."

Kupersmith did indicate that Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson supports the location of a hotel on the parcel to the north of the existing center: "I do want to state we have very enthusiastic mayoral support for the location of the hotel." She told the CIB that it's anticipated there will be an agenda item related to a land deal for the RDC to consider at its first meeting in April, which falls on April 7. Kupersmith added, "It's not finalized yet."

John Whikehart serves as president of the CIB. Whikehart's response to Kupersmith was to stress a sense of "urgency" about getting the deal done, something he said he'd already conveyed to Kupersmith. "Jane knows I'm going to say this because I've said it to her in our conversations that we've had," Whikehart said.

To underscore the need for a sense of urgency, Whikehart noted that Dora Hospitality was selected as the favored developer of a hotel in October of 2024.

All three developers who submitted proposals, including Dora, had said it would be a two and a half year project, Whikehart noted. The five months since the selection of Dora means "we're five months farther away from having a hotel," Whikehart said. Whikehart put that five-month span in the context of the CIB's goal of opening the convention center expansion in January of 2027.

The prospect of opening the convention center expansion without a completed hotel project is a likely scenario. The only question appears to be how long after the convention center construction is completed the hotel project will follow.

Whikehart said he's told Dora Hospitality's Vincent Dora the same thing: "We're looking for movement on this." Whikehart said if there's no movement, then the question to ask is: "What is Plan B?"

When Bloomington's RDC bought the two parcels making up the land in question, the sum of the prices was just under $7 million. When that land was being considered by the CIB as the site of the convention center expansion, not the site of a private hotel development, Bloomington's city council weighed in with a letter to the RDC. The city council said that the RDC should require the CIB to pay at least the purchase price for the land, if the CIB were to use it for the convention center expansion.

The CIB factored the council's view, which was consistent with Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson's view, into its choice of the site for the expansion. The expansion site selected by the CIB turned out to be across College Avenue, to the east, on land that Monroe County government had agreed to donate to the project.

Even though the city council does not have to approve the sale of the former Bunger and Robertson property—because it's the RDC that owns it—at the point when the decision about the expansion site was made, the council had some leverage. The leverage stemmed from the fact that the bond issuance to fund the project, using food and beverage tax revenue, had not yet been approved. The city council approved that bond issuance in early March.

The RFQ issued by the CIB about the hotel described the scale and quality of the project. The CIB wants the hotel to be an up-scale facility with at least 200 guest rooms and a range of amenities, like a restaurant, lounge, concierge or virtual concierge services, and an outdoor atmosphere like a rooftop courtyard. Included in the RFP is a meeting room of at least 10,000 square feet, along with a fitness center.

Sustainability features are also expected. The hotel developer is also supposed to work with the convention center to establish a room block agreement and use dedicated marketing staff to promote bookings. The RFP says there needs to be at least one parking space per guest room.

At Wednesday's CIB meeting, the group got an update from Schmidt Associates on construction plans and preparations for the expansion. The project is headed towards a June 1 groundbreaking.

At its Wednesday meeting, the CIB approved a $24,000 amendment to the pre-construction contract, for work that Weddle Brothers is doing as the construction manager on the project. That amendment covered the removal of street trees next to the project site, which had some urgency attached to it. Under guidance issued by the Indiana Department of Transportation, trees are supposed to be removed only between Nov 15 and March 31, to protect habitat for bats. The trees were removed on March 27, the day after the CIB met.