Hopewell East land offering made by Bloomington, follows Hopewell South, West to come
The city of Bloomington, through its redevelopment commission (RDC), has put up for sale another $6 million worth of land. It’s a bit south of downtown, at the site of the former IU Health hospital at the intersection of 2nd and Rogers streets.
The land was acquired by the RDC from the health care provider, and a new neighborhood is planned there, called Hopewell—which could see as many as 900 units of new housing built there.
Two months ago, the RDC issued a public offering for the part of the planned neighborhood south of 1st Street, which is called Hopewell South.
This time around, the land sits at the southwest corner of 2nd and Morton streets, running essentially along the west side of the B-Line Trail—it’s called Hopewell East. The public offering for Hopewell East was approved at the Bloomington RDC’s regular Monday meeting.
Eventually to be offered is the land where the actual IU Health hospital building stood, before it was demolished. That’s Hopewell West.
The specific real estate in this week’s offering is 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.
Based on the public offering document included in the RDC’s meeting information packet, Hopewell East could see a total of 330 units constructed there.
Like Hopewell South did, Hopewell East comes with expectations that at least some of the housing will be income-restricted. From the public offering: “The City aims for a mixed-income development with affordable, workforce, and market-rate units.”
The public offering says that Bloomington wants at least 20 percent of Hopewell’s total housing units to be “affordable”—across a range of affordability levels, including 120 percent of Area Median Income (AMI).
Bloomington is defining “long-term affordability” as staying affordable for at least 99 years.
Hopewell East is intended to include mid-rise rental apartments with retail or other uses that would make the ground floor “active.” Preferential scoring would be given to proposals from developers that include home ownership as an option—but there’s no requirement for home ownership.
There’s also an expectation of a sustainable approach to development. The offering notes that Bloomington’s Climate Action Plan targets zero emissions by 2050. According to the offering document, proposals that aim for LEED Silver certification will be rated higher than those that aim for achieving the LEED Silver standard without actual certification.
Proposals for fully electric developments will also be given preferential scoring, according to the offering document.
At Monday’s RDC meeting, Bloomington director of economic and sustainable development Jane Kupersmith said the three blocks in Hopewell East could be of interest for LIHTC (pronounced /lye-tek/) financing which stands for Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. That’s a federal program designed to incentivize private developers to create affordable rental housing for low-income households.
Available to answer questions over a Zoom video conference connection at Monday’s RDC meeting was Stephany Lin, with U3 Advisors, which is the RDC’s owner’s representative for the Hopewell redevelopment project.
Calling the term “vague,” RDC member John West had a question for city attorney Larry Allen about the “redevelopment fee” that gets a reference in the public offering document. Allen said the redevelopment fee is for covering some of the costs that the RDC has incurred for development of the property. Allen called the “redevelopment fee” a “negotiating point.”
A schematic in the offering document shows which road improvements have been funded and which have not yet been funded. In the category of not-yet-funded street improvements are Morton Street on the east, and Rogers Street on the west. According to the offering document, the improvement of those unfunded roads, to meet the specifications of Bloomington’s UDO (unified development ordinance), would be the responsibility of the developer.
RDC member Randy Cassady expressed some concern about the uncertainty of the potential cost that road improvements might have for developers. Kupersmith told Cassady that “developers who are in the business of providing responses to documents like this will have…ballpark numbers that they use when they’re looking at infrastructure all-in.”
Cassady and West both expressed some concern that developers were being asked to do a lot and deliver a lot in their responses. West summed it up like this: Just be careful what you ask for—you want to be LEED certified, you want affordable housing, and you want all this other stuff.” West wrapped up the point by saying, “Well, you just have to be conscious of that, when we’re looking at the offers.”
Attending the meeting in addition to Cassady and West were Sue Sgambelluri who is the RDC vice president, and Laurie McRobbie, who participated by way of Zoom video conference connection. RDC president Deborah Myerson was absent.
For the Hopewell East public offering, which was authorized by Bloomington’s RDC on Monday, the deadline for proposals is Feb. 7.
The deadline for responses to the Hopewell South offering was initially Nov. 1, but has been extended to Dec. 6.
