New operations center for Bloomington public buses: Location to be revealed soon
The location of the planned new operations facility for Bloomington Transit could be revealed in a couple of weeks—at the next meeting of BT's board of directors on April 15. That was one takeaway from the board's meeting this past Tuesday.
BT general manager John Connell told the board during Tuesday's meeting that he wanted to schedule an executive session for them on the topic in the coming days. Under Indiana's Open Door Law, real estate deals are one of the allowable topics for executive sessions, which are closed to the public.
The new facility for bus storage, maintenance, and administration would replace the one currently co-located on Grimes Lane with Indiana University's campus bus facility. The Grimes Lane land is owned by the university, but the building is owned by Bloomington Transit. Not affected or involved in the new operations facility is BT's downtown bus station, at 3rd and Walnut streets.
Connell told The B Square after Tuesday's board meeting that if everything goes perfectly according to plan, ground could be broken on the new facility some time in the second quarter of 2026.
Expansion of the current operations center footprint to the surrounding real estate is not feasible, because most of the current facility sits in a floodplain, and some of it is in the floodway.
While the exact location of the new facility is not known, it's still expected to be close to the city of Bloomington, even if it's not inside city limits. BT directed its real estate consultant, Hanson Professional Services, Inc., to expand its search for a new location to include any property within Monroe County's urbanized area.
The reason for building a new operations complex is that BT's current bus facility at Grimes Lane is not big enough to accommodate the expanded fleet that BT will need, in order to operate expanded service, including a planned new east-west express route. That east-west express route has been branded as the Green Line.
Out of Tuesday's meeting, the other piece of news related to the planned new facility involved an approval from the FTA (Federal Transit Administration). Connell told the board that the FTA had granted a "category exclusion" under the NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) for the property that BT wants to purchase. A categorical exclusion means that the planned transit facility has been determined to have no significant environmental impact. That means it does not require an environmental assessment (EA) or environmental impact statement (EIS).
Connell told the board the categorical exclusion means the purchase of the property can be negotiated before the Phase II environmental work is done. Phase I environmental review of the "subject property" and appraisals have been completed, according to Connell.
BT will be pursuing the construction project using a part of Indiana state code on public-private partnerships that is covered under IC 5-23-3. In October 2024, the board received a presentation on the BOT (build operate transfer) approach from Greg Martz, a partner with GM Development.
According to Martz, the big advantage of the BOT is the scoping period, after the qualified respondent is selected. In his October 2024 presentation to the BT board, he put it like this: "[The scoping period] begins on the day you pick that qualified respondent. It ends on the day that that respondent gives you a budget that you're comfortable with." That effectively allows a guaranteed maximum price to be determined at the start. Marz put it like this: "This is the only [process] I know of in Indiana state law where you're getting the guaranteed price prior to voting to move forward or to commit money to the project."
In November 2024, the board adopted the BOT approach. In February, the board established a committee to oversee the project. The committee includes Connell, as BT general manager, James McLary and Doug Horn as board members, Zac Huneck, who is BT's grants and procurement specialist, and Bloomington's city engineer Andrew Cibor.
As of last year, the total estimated cost for BT's new facility was $54.4 million, which included $10 million for land acquisition, and $600,000 for architectural and engineering work. BT was hoping to get $35 million from the FTA (Federal Transit Authority), through Section 5339(b) of Title 49 of the United States Code. But that application did not come through.
To help fund the project, BT is now looking at about $13.6 million of Section 5307 funding that it has been awarded but is still uncommitted. In February, Connell told the BT board that his "greatest concern at this point is that uncommitted funding could evaporate." BT is also looking at the almost $4 million annually it receives from the city of Bloomington through the economic development local income tax (ED LIT) to help pay for the new operations facility.
