Convention center expansion takes steps ahead with sharp words from 2 Bloomington councilmembers
On Wednesday, the planned expansion of the Monroe Convention Center was the focus of two important meetings.
In the afternoon, Monroe County’s capital improvement board (CIB) heard presentations from three different hoteliers who responded to a request for proposals (RFP) to develop a hotel in connection with the convention center expansion.
In the evening, members of the CIB presented their proposed 2025 budget to the Bloomington city council, which considered a resolution requesting that the FABTAC (food and beverage tax advisory commission) review the planned expenditure of food and beverage tax revenues for the CIB’s nearly $900,000 budget for next year. That resolution passed with dissent from Matt Flaherty and Kate Rosenbarger.
The CIB is the public agency, subject to an interlocal agreement between city and county government, that is tasked with overseeing the design and construction of a convention center expansion.
Hotelier presentations
Making presentations to the seven-member CIB were: Dora Hospitality LLC; Garfield Public/Private LLC; and MHG Hotels LLC.
The talking points presented by the three hoteliers generally addressed the elements of the RFP.
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 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.
The one presenter that showed a specific design concept on specific land was Dora Hospitality. Dora’s concept uses the former site of the Bunger & Robertson law firm at 4th Street and College Avenue, on the block north of the existing convention center. But it’s Bloomington’s redevelopment commission (RDC), not the CIB, that owns that site, so the offering would need to be made by the RDC.
According to Deb Kunce with JS Held, the CIB’s project manager for the convention center expansion, the next step in the process for selecting a hotelier will be a public offering of real estate for hoteliers to bid on.
The actual nature of the public offering is supposed to come into clearer focus next Wednesday (Sept. 11) at the CIB’s regular monthly meeting.
As an expansion site, the seven-member CIB has settled on the land owned by Monroe County government, to the east, across College Avenue from the existing facility, which stands at the southwest corner of College and 3rd Street.
Former Bloomington mayor John Hamilton initiated the purchase of the former Bunger & Robertson property with an eye towards contributing it as the location of the convention center expansion. The total cost, after the biggest part was purchased in 2019 for about $5 million, and a smaller chunks was bought in 2023 for about $2 million, came to about $7 million.
Current mayor Kerry Thomson is looking to recoup that $7 million—which was a big reason the CIB opted to expand the convention center eastward, using land that Monroe County government is donating, instead of northward.
Now it’s potentially a hotelier that might have to face the $7 million purchase price.
The three preliminary concepts for the design of the expansion all feature a skywalk connector over College Avenue between the existing facility and the expansion.
City council FABTAC resolution: Skywalks
It was the skywalk connector featured in the preliminary designs that drew sharp responses from city councilmembers Matt Flaherty and Kate Rosenbarger on Wednesday evening.
The item in front of the council was a resolution requesting that the FABTAC (food and beverage tax advisory commission) review the planned expenditure of food and beverage tax revenues for the CIB’s nearly $900,000 budget for next year.
It could have been a perfunctory vote—because it simply requested a review of the proposal by the FABTAC, a required statutory step, which would then come back to the council for approval of an appropriation.
But the growing dissatisfaction of Flaherty and Rosenbarger with the convention center expansion project—which was already reflected in their dissent on the council’s vote to approve CIB’s 2024 budget—was aired out clear terms on Wednesday night.
Flaherty said, “I’ll be voting no tonight, and also on the FABTAC recommendations coming back to us, as well as bonds, if the CIB does not take seriously the guidance that we, as the fiscal body responsible for approving the design and everything else with the convention center, put forward.”
Rosenbarger said, “I think I’m going to go back to my practice of just saying out loud: I don’t support the convention center.” She continued, “I think we have more urgent needs. And I’m just going to go back to voting no.”
The city council’s preference against skywalks was conveyed to the CIB in a June letter that included this context: “The Council hopes the CIB will incorporate this information and guidance into its decisions and processes as it continues to meet and advance the Project.”
The part about skywalks reads like this: “The design should not include ‘skywalk’ connections …, which would limit convention attendee opportunities to interact with and patronize downtown businesses. Skywalks would also undermine the quality of public space in the downtown, in contradiction to city plans and goals.”
The background to the specific friction over skywalks included remarks from CIB member Doug Bruce, the city council’s appointee to the group, who gave the council an update on the CIB’s work up to now.
Responding to a question from councilmember Dave Rollo, Bruce said about the council’s letter with its guidance: “I think there were 21 or 23 items, and I think we’ve managed to address 18 of them.” Bruce added, “So we are listening to you. I think those are very excellent points.”
That’s when things started to go a little sideways.
Flaherty asked Bruce: “Am I understanding correctly that the feeling of the CIB now is to ignore that guidance and go with the skywalk over College Avenue. Is that right?”
Bruce replied: “Well, I wouldn’t exactly say it’s ignoring the guidance.” He continued, “We’ve taken it under advisement.” Bruce noted that every hotelier and convention center consultant the CIB had talked to had supported the idea of a skywalk connection.
Bruce pointed to the attention to pedestrian scale and entrance locations of the expansion as evidence that the CIB and the architects understand the basic issue of activating the street.
CIB treasurer Eric Spoonmore then offered a perspective that eventually prompted a sharper tone from Flaherty and Rosenbarger. Spoonmore said, “Another consideration that we want to be mindful of is the council’s resolution to reduce pedestrian deaths or injuries—I think that was passed back in April.”
Spoonmore continued, “Having a skywalk to connect the two facilities is really the only 100 percent way that we can make sure of that—that pedestrians are going to be safe [in the context of a downtown convention center].”
At that point, Flaherty signaled his irritation obliquely, telling Spoonmore: “Thank you for sharing your opinions.”
But when it came time for councilmember remarks, after indicating he would be voting no, Flaherty delivered a full-throated condemnation of Spoonmore’s comments. Flaherty said he was “deeply disappointed in the comments we heard earlier, about pedestrian safety, which I can only describe, as so fundamentally misguided that I don’t even know where to start, honestly.”
Flaherty was echoing Rosenbarger’s earlier reaction to Spoonmore. “If you think that the crossing of College at 3rd is going to create more pedestrian deaths, then what we need to do is change the street so it’s not dangerous by design,” Rosenbarger said. Rosenbarger added, “Also, if you think we should be putting in ‘gerbil tubes’ for pedestrians, then we have a lot more intersections than just 3rd and College—we have all our city intersections.”
For his part, Rollo said, “Everything I’ve seen the CIB deliver has been respectful of council.” He added, “I understand that there are some differences of opinion. I don’t quite understand why a skywalk or something of that nature is a deal breaker in this case.”
Rollo continued, “I think that we could have that sort of connectivity with also safe streets,” adding, “I don’t think that one precludes the other, and so I’m happy to talk to my colleagues more about this.”
Timeline for next steps
The project timeline that CIB member Doug Bruce presented to the city council included: Sept. 16 for community feedback on preliminary design; Oct. 9 for a schematic design review meeting; Jan. 25 for start of city plan commission review; and construction beginning in March of 2025.
June of 2027 is now the target completion time frame.
CIB controller Jeff Underwood told the city council on Wednesday that the CIB is looking to come to the city council in late January or early February, for that a hearing on the bond issuance to pay for construction. The idea would be to close on the bonds by the end of March, and have funds available for the second quarter of 2025 that would coincide with the beginning of the construction, Underwood said.
