Critical decisions soon for Monroe Convention Center expansion: site, budget, uses
This week, a possible path forward for the Monroe County convention center expansion project in downtown Bloomington got charted out in a bit more detail.
At its regular meeting on Wednesday, the Monroe County capital improvement board (CIB) got an update on two separate processes. One is to bring on board a construction manager as constructor (CMc) for the convention center project. The other is to strike a deal with a hotelier.
The CIB also got updated preliminary schematics for expansion options from Schmidt Associates, the architectural firm the CIB has retained to continue its preliminary conceptual design work from five years ago.
Schmidt presented four schematics for expansion—in each compass direction from the current convention center facility, which is located on the southwest corner of 3rd Street and College Avenue.
The East option now appears to have some initial support, but that decision is probably at least a couple weeks away.
On Thursday, Bloomington’s city council held a work session to focus on the topic of the convention center expansion. That came in the wake of the April 10 split vote of the council on the CIB’s budget. Before its April 10 meeting, the council also held a work session on the convention center expansion.
The outcome of the work session was a consensus that the city council should spell out its expectations for the project in a letter to the CIB.
The idea is to use the council’s specific role—as the fiscal body that has to approve the bonding for the construction—as a way to influence the size, design, and use of the new facility.
Thursday’s city council work session
At Thursday’s work session, councilmember Matt Flaherty, who voted against approval of the CIB’s budget, put it like this: “What we’re talking about here and recognizing, is that the city council is the city’s fiscal body and the sole body responsible for approving all the bonding for the whole project. And that is a unique role that warrants additional considerations that we’re talking about now.”
The other councilmember who voted against approval of the CIB’s budget was Kate Rosenbarger.
Flaherty laid out his list of concerns and expectations for the project, in two broad categories of finance and design/use.
Flaherty’s list, paraphrased here with a few B Square annotations, formed the basic framework for much of the subsequent discussion.
Finances:
- Funding source constraints. The project should be “right-sized” to rely on food and beverage tax revenues, instead of drawing from the city’s own revenues, TIF (tax increment finance) money, or other revenues.
- Real estate allocation. City property used in the project should receive reimbursement as described in the letter to the city’s RDC with eight councilmember signatures. The city’s corporation counsel, Margie Rice, sent a similar letter to the CIB.From a practical point of view, the use of the former Bunger & Robertson property at 4th Street and College Avenue, for a northward expansion, would require that the CIB to use $7 million of the current $17 million food and beverage tax fund balance. That would tend to push the CIB towards and eastward, instead of a northward expansion, because Monroe County government is willing to donate the real estate to the east.
- Bonding capacity. Include a standard contingency of 10 percent in the project costs. Determine the fraction of city’s share of the food and beverage tax revenues to be allocated to the convention center project. One non-legally binding reference point is a 2017 letter of intent signed by then-mayor John Hamilton, that indicates at least 92.5 percent of the city’s food and beverage tax revenue will be used for the convention center expansion.
- City subsidies. Don’t extend city subsidies to development of a hotel or related parking garage.
- Operations and Maintenance Planning. Develop a comprehensive plan for the project’s lifecycle, including maintenance, equipment replacement, and ensuring adequate revenue generation to cover operational costs, beyond the sunset of the food and beverage tax.
Design/Use:
- Sustainability. Prioritize sustainability in design considerations.
- Urban form. Emphasize high-quality urban form to enhance the public realm and contribute in a positive way to downtown aesthetics and functionality.
- Civic uses. Ensure that the project incorporates civic uses and aligns with city goals.
- Approval processes. Plan commission approval should come before the city council approves bonding. Don’t grant variances that contradict city objectives, particularly those related to pedestrian safety.
Helping Flaherty to finalize a draft letter for consideration by the full council will be Sydney Zulich and Rosenbarger. Zulich is the council’s representative to Downtown Bloomington, Inc.
The notion of “civic use” got a bit of airtime even before Flaherty floated his list. The idea of the convention center as a civic center is an idea that councilmember Dave Rollo has long championed.
In past council conversations, Rollo has seemed to indicate that the idea is that the new convention center should have amenities that are useful and accessible to local civic groups to rent, like a performance venue.
In support of the idea, at Thursday’s work session, Rollo cited the wording of the four-way interlocal agreement, between city and county government, about the CIB and the convention center expansion:
Section 5. General Intention as to Convention Center Use: The parties intend that the Expanded Convention Center shall also serve as a Civic Center for the use of community residents and non-profit organizations, consistent with the financial and operational needs of the Expanded Convention Center.
At Thursday’s work session councilmember Kate Rosenbarger suggested that “civic use” should not be limited to the availability of space that could be rented by local organizations. Rosenbarger thinks there should be space in the new facility that is open on regular hours—as a “teen space” or a “hang-out.”
A possible point of consensus for the city council seems to be that the size of the expansion project should be constrained by availability of food and beverage tax revenue, and further, that not all of the city’s share of the revenue should necessarily be put towards the convention center expansion.
Based on the city council’s work session, it looks like the expansion project might have to be sized at 40,000 square feet, instead of the 60,000 square feet that was recommended by a Hunden Partners study a few years ago.
Wednesday’s CIB meeting
At Wednesday’s CIB meeting, David Greusel with Convergence Design, which is the firm working with Schmidt Associates on preliminary design concepts, was asked to talk about the issue of size.
Greusel said the Hunden Partners study had identified an optimal size of the big ballroom at 35-40,000 square feet, which translates into about 60,000 total square feet for an expansion. The alternative of 40,000 square feet for the total expansion is based on the possibility that there’s just not enough money to build a 60,000-square-foot expansion, Greusel said.
A 40,000-square-foot expansion would be a reduction in what the Hunden study had indicated would be optimal, Greusel said. That doesn’t mean a smaller expansion couldn’t be successful, he added. But it would mean a missed opportunity.
Greusel put it like this: “It does mean you’re not going to be addressing the full extent of the market-supportable demand that’s already out there for a convention facility in Bloomington, Indiana.”
The process for selecting a CMc (construction manager as constructor) has already seen six firms respond to an RFQ (request for qualifications) from the CIB. The plan is not to shortlist any of them, but rather to invite them all to respond to an RFP (request for proposals), which had a deadline of Friday, May 10.
An evaluation committee will review the responses to the RFP. Members of that committee will be Jim Whitlatch (CIB legal counsel); Deb Kunce (with owner’s rep JS Held); Mary Krupinski (with owner’s rep JS Held); Jeff Underwood (CIB controller); Adam Thies (CIB member); Doug Bruce (CIB member); and John Whikehart (CIB president).
A special meeting of the CIB will be held on May 22, to make recommendations for a short list of RFP respondents to be interviewed. The interviews will take place during the week of June 3. The plan is to put a proposal for a CMc in front of the CIB for approval and selection at its June 12 meeting.
The selection of a hotelier to build a place for conventioneers to stay is not as far along as the CMc selection process. CIB legal counsel Jim Whitlatch reported that six responses were received for the hotel RFQ and that the CIB’s owner’s rep for the project, JS Held, will analyze the responses.
The CIB is not planning to issue an RFP for a hotelier until the direction of the convention center expansion is settled—north, south, east or west.
After the presentation from Schmidt Associates, CIB member Jay Baer gave an initial reaction to the options in each compass direction, saying that it appears to him that East is the “obvious” choice. Baer put it like this: “I don’t want to rush to judgment here, but it certainly seems to me that the East option is overwhelmingly the best choice.”
Baer gave arguments against the other directions: “The South option moves the heart of the convention center away from downtown, away from a parking garage. The North option, we don’t have the money for. The West option is right in the neighborhood, and we don’t know what the land situation is going to be.”
Baer continued, “So this feels like a very obvious decision, but maybe I’m misreading or mischaracterizing the facts at hand.” He added, “But if it is an obvious decision, then let’s decide.”
CIB president John Whikehart told Baer it might not be as obvious to everyone else as it is to Baer.
The next step for the CIB on the selection of a direction to expand will be an executive session to discuss the issue of location. Under Indiana’s Open Door Law, a real estate transaction is one of the topics that a public body can discuss in a session that is closed to the public. The executive session is set for Monday, May 13.
