Hotel timeline narrows window for Seminary Pointe land swap in downtown Bloomington

The Seminary Pointe block, which extends to 2nd Street, south of the existing Bloomington Convention Center, and includes cheap-rent apartments and commercial space, is caught in the middle of significant development pressures.

Monroe County’s capital improvement board (CIB) is now looking at the block as the site of the host hotel to support a convention center expansion, which is already well underway, expected to be completed in early 2027.

At the CIB’s regular monthly meeting on Wednesday (June 17), the pressure was highlighted from the public mic, when Matthew Joseph and Bryce Greene, advocates with Bloomington Homes for All, made a plea to board members to respond to a public offering from the city’s redevelopment commission (RDC) for its College Square site (aka the former Bunger & Robinson lot) at 2nd Street and College Avenue.

The idea is that the CIB would respond to the RDC’s public offering with an offer to trade Seminary Pointe, which it now owns, for College Square, which is owned by the RDC.

This Saturday (June 20), from noon until 1:30 p.m. at the downtown branch of the Monroe County Library, Bloomington Homes for All will be hosting a public forum on their proposal to preserve the affordable housing units at Seminary Pointe.

In the land swap scenario advocated by the housing advocates—Seminary Pointe for College Square—the RDC would transfer the Seminary Pointe real estate to a community land trust, and the CIB would then own the College Square lot, which it could offer to a hotelier at no cost.

But CIB president John Whikehart confirmed to The B Square after Wednesday’s meeting that the CIB does not intend to respond to the RDC’s public offering.

That’s despite the fact that the CIB would in principle support the land swap idea. The CIB had asked the RDC to pause its public offering for 30-days to allow for a negotiation on a potential land swap. The RDC went ahead with its public offering of College Square, but left the door open for the CIB to respond.

The CIB is in principle in support of the land swap idea, because it would allow for development of a host hotel at its preferred location, which is College Square. Negotiations for the RDC-owned College Square lot, which lasted over a year between the Bloomington redevelopment commission (RDC) and Dora Hospitality, which was the CIB’s preferred hotelier, foundered over the purchase price.

There is now a public offering from the RDC for College Square, with responses due on July 20. The deadline for hoteliers to respond to the RFP for a Seminary Pointe as a convention center host hotel site is June 30.

At Wednesday’s CIB meeting, the board reviewed its schedule for consideration of the hotel proposals for Seminary Pointe, which has dates pointing to a conclusion that a land swap scenario is likely a long shot.

Proposals from hotel developers responding to the CIB’s RFP are due June 30. A special meeting is set for July 1 at 3 p.m., so that owner’s rep JS Held can brief the board on which proposers cleared the submission bar. A second special meeting on July 8 is reserved for interviews with qualified teams.

Between July 8 and the board’s regular July 15 meeting, an evaluation group is slated to sift the proposals and interviews and bring back a recommendation on a preferred hotelier. The evaluation group consists of CIB members Doug Bruce, Jay Baer, and president John Whikehart, along with attorney Jim Whitlatch, controller Jeff Underwood, JS Held and its hotel consultant, plus Mike Campbell from the county’s convention and visitors commission, and Mike McAfee of Visit Bloomington.

That means the CIB is poised to choose a hotel development partner for Seminary Pointe five days before the RDC’s July 20 deadline for College Square proposals.

The timeline the CIB adopted Wednesday means the RDC will likely be weighing other proposals for College Square at the same time the CIB is locking in a hotel deal for Seminary Pointe.

Besides the CIB’s schedule for reviewing hotel proposals, the board’s intent to move ahead with Seminary Pointe as a host hotel site is also clear from the posted notices of intent to demolish all the buildings on the site.

For some of the buildings, the intent to demolish them has triggered a review by the city’s historic preservation commission (HPC). The next HPC meeting at which the case can be heard will be the regularly scheduled meeting on June 25.