Land swap to save Seminary Pointe housing now backed by Bloomington city council

The tension between developing a host hotel for Bloomington’s expanded convention center and the city’s affordable housing goals got more airtime Wednesday night (June 3). The city council unanimously approved a new, revised letter to Bloomington’s redevelopment commission (RDC).

The council’s revised letter explicitly gives the council’s support to a less-than-equal land swap on College Square (aka the former Bunger & Robertson lot), in order to preserve the current affordable housing on the Seminary Pointe block. The Seminary Pointe block, south of the current convention center facility, was recently transferred at no cost to the Monroe County capital improvement board (CIB) by the Monroe County government, which purchased the property for around $3.2 million in 2010 with proceeds from the 5% countrywide innkeeper’s tax.

The land swap, which is supported by the CIB, which is overseeing the convention center expansion, would involve transfer of the Seminary Pointe block to the RDC in exchange for the College Square lot. In that scenario, the RDC would immediately transfer the Seminary Pointe block to a community land trust.

Wednesday’s vote to approve the new letter was 8–0. Kate Rosenbarger was not present for the vote.

Councilmember Isabel Piedmont-Smith used her report time at the start of the meeting to read the letter into the record. It marks a shift from an earlier council position statement issued two years ago, in May 2024, that effectively told the RDC not to part with College Square for less than the $6,895,000 it spent to acquire the site.

The CIB has identified the College Square site, at 4th Street and College Avenue, just north of the current convention center, as the preferred location for a convention center host hotel. There’s a broad consensus that the College Square location is the best suited one for a convention center host hotel.

The new letter mentions the May 6, 2024 letter, signed by eight councilmembers and another letter from Dec. 15, 2025 signed by four councilmembers, that says the RDC College Square property should only be used for the convention center project, including a new hotel, if the RDC recouped the amount it spent to acquire the site, which was about $6.9 million in two separate transactions—one in 2019 and the other in 2023.

The new letter walks that back: “We wish to state clearly that we are not opposed to the RDC’s disposition of the site for an amount less than the purchase price, if significant public benefit can be gained, such as the preservation and/or provision of low-income housing.”

Council comment

The value of the Seminary Pointe block is believed to be less than the College Square lot, but it is currently the subject of two pending appraisals commissioned by the CIB.

Piedmont-Smith framed the central public benefit as the preservation of Seminary Pointe’s apartments and small businesses. She called the situation “an exciting opportunity … to do things differently than the status quo,” after years in which the city has “lost affordable housing to new development.”

The letter outlines three general options for tying College Square to affordable housing: build affordable units on College Square itself; exchange it for nearby land controlled by the CIB and develop or preserve affordable housing there; or sell College Square at market value and reinvest the proceeds in affordable housing.

On the land-swap option, the council’s new letter explicitly recommends the May 18 proposal from Bloomington Homes for All and the Bloomington Democratic Socialists of America Housing Working Group. That proposal envisions a hotel on College Square while Seminary Pointe is preserved as affordable housing and community-oriented commercial space under a mission-driven owner.

Piedmont-Smith went further in her spoken remarks, saying that “the only way that that can happen at this point is if the CIB swaps the Seminary Pointe property for the College Square property owned by the RDC.”

Councilmember Matt Flaherty ultimately supported the letter, but pushed back on both the financing implications and the idea that a full-block swap is the “only way” to the outcome described by Piedmont-Smith.

Flaherty reminded colleagues of his long-held view that the food and beverage tax was supposed to be exhaustive of the city’s public subsidy and contribution for the convention center project, including the related elements like a host hotel. He said he is “philosophically opposed” to layering additional subsidy for the convention center on top of that, in the form of a potentially unequal land swap that would effectively contribute tax-increment financing (TIF) revenue to the convention center project.

Flaherty said he had previously floated the idea that the CIB accept only part of College Square in a swap, reasoning that the other hotels in downtown Bloomington are on a half city block. He said he was not prepared to accept as the CIB’s actual negotiating position any statements attributed to CIB leadership that they would not be interested in just a half-block. “Absent a deliberative conversation … what’s realistically on the table and what’s fiscally prudent, I don’t take that at face value,” he said.

In the end, Flaherty said he supports the vision for Seminary Pointe, and for that reason was willing to support the letter.

Councilmember Courtney Daily, who was the lone dissenter from the May 6, 2024 letter, stressed that for her to support Wednesday’s letter it had been important to include the scenario of a full land swap. She thanked Piedmont-Smith “for putting that full land swap language back in there.”

Council member Dave Rollo said he shared many of Flaherty’s concerns, but put his emphasis on the outcome rather than the precise terms. “In spirit, I would like to see this negotiation happen,” he said. “It’s up to the RDC to negotiate that, and perhaps they can arrive in the middle somewhere, but I think that it’s important to try to save Seminary Pointe and maintain it for affordability.”

From the public mic

Public testimony included remarks from housing advocates behind the Homes for All proposal. Bryce Greene, representing Bloomington Democratic Socialists of America and working with Bloomington Homes for All, thanked the council for moving the letter to its current form and stressed the role previous council correspondence has already played with the RDC.

“The RDC has made it clear that they took the earlier letters from city council very seriously in determining whether or not to accept a land swap from the CIB,” Greene said. He described the preferred scenario as one where the CIB acquires College Square, contingent on Seminary Pointe being sold to a mission-focused nonprofit at a nominal fee.

Greene underscored the time pressure created by expiring leases at Seminary Pointe, currently extended only through August 31. “Every second that it’s unclear that there’s a solution on the table, more and more of the people and businesses in Seminary Pointe are making plans to leave,” he said. “If they all leave, that imperils the entire project as a whole.”

Sarah Woolford, Housing Solutions Director at Habitat for Humanity and a member of Bloomington Homes for All, thanked councilmembers for working toward “a winnable solution for everyone.” She announced a Saturday, June 20 presentation by Bloomington Homes for All, to which members of the city council, CIB, and RDC, as well as the public, will be invited. The goal, she said, is to present a more detailed vision for the Seminary Pointe property.

The next moves will depend on the RDC and the CIB. The RDC’s public offering of the College Square site has a due date for responses by July 20. The CIB’s request for proposals for a host hotel on the Seminary Pointe block has a due date of June 30.