Seminary Pointe units boarded up after removal of unauthorized occupants, reports of drug use

Early Thursday afternoon (July 23), sheets of plywood bearing “No Trespassing” signs were fastened across the doors and windows of the Seminary Pointe apartment building at 432 S. College Ave.

That’s after Bloomington police responded to complaints that people without leases had broken into the building and were using parts of it for drug use. Most of the residential rental units are vacant, but a few have tenants. Remaining renters in the building reportedly felt the situation was becoming dangerous and were fearful, which led one authorized tenant to leave.

On Thursday, The B Square counted five police officers on site, who went into at least two of the units, on the second floor of the west side of the building, and told the occupants they had to leave. Two people left the units without further incident.

Arriving at the scene were two others who wanted to go inside to retrieve some of their belongings. They were allowed to do that after giving officers their identifying information.

The buildings on the property are slated for demolition, to make way for the development of a host hotel in support of the Bloomington Convention Center expansion project. The material to board up the building and the crew came from the convention center construction project, just to the north of the apartment building.

A housing advocacy group has been working to preserve the buildings at Seminary Pointe with their total of 29-units of very affordable housing and a half dozen commercial spaces. The group released a statement late Thursday: “Bloomington Homes for All is saddened to watch as state violence is used to displace people in need from Seminary Pointe.”

The statement continued, “Every day, the ever increasing cost of housing pushes people out of homes and onto the street. Every day, countless people resort to occupying vacant buildings to survive, risking violence and harassment from the state.”

The statement from Bloomington Homes for All wrapped like this: “That so many people get priced out of housing and end up homeless is precisely the reason that affordable housing is so important. It is this reason that BH4A continues to fight for housing as a genuine human right.”

The collection of buildings appear to have only a handful of authorized occupants left. The B Square spoke to the one remaining tenant in the building next to the one boarded up on Thursday, who counted four or five who remain.

The apartment building that was boarded up is just to the south of Jeff’s Warehouse on College Avenue. To the south is the Seminary Square Kroger and Seminary Park.

On Thursday, Bloomington police officers were joined there by security officers from Marshall Security Inc. and representatives of PMI, the property manager. Talisha Coppock, executive director of the Bloomington Convention Center, was also on site.

It’s the Monroe County capital improvement board (CIB) that is overseeing the convention center expansion project and the development of a host hotel.

John Whikehart, president of the Monroe County CIB, told the B Square that the increase in activity in the building by occupants without leases had become an increasingly serious problem. Police had recommended boarding up the building, he said.

The real estate in question only recently came under control of the CIB. City and county government transferred the downtown parcels to the CIB this spring as part of the effort to assemble land for a convention center host hotel. The block previously included 29 very low-rent apartments and several commercial tenants.

On May 20, the CIB offered the remaining residential tenants and three commercial tenants lease extensions through Aug. 31. It shortened the Jeff’s Warehouse lease to no later than Sept. 30 and authorized Whikehart to pursue demolition permits.

The CIB unanimously selected Dora Hospitality on July 15 to negotiate an agreement for a 200-room, full-service host hotel on the land south of the convention center. That decision sharply diminished prospects for a proposed land swap that housing advocates hoped would preserve the apartments and commercial spaces on the Seminary Pointe block.

Demolition could begin as early as Oct. 1. Bloomington’s historic preservation commission cleared a major obstacle June 25 when it released demolition delays covering the buildings at 424 S. College Ave. and 222 W. 2nd St.

[Bloomington Convention Center Timeline]