Supporters rally at Friendly Beasts to keep Seminary Pointe housing, community space

People walking and biking along the B-Line Trail just north of 2nd Street on Friday evening (May 15) passed a crowd of at least 70 people gathered outside Friendly Beasts Cidery for an event focused on “saving Seminary Pointe.” Dozens more filled the space inside.

The Seminary Pointe block includes what advocates organizing under the banner of Bloomington Homes for All call “super-affordable housing.” It’s a mixed-use block, with a residential component that includes 29 apartment units renting for roughly $400 to $700 a month. The commercial side includes businesses like Friendly Beasts, Blue Tip Billiards, Jeff’s Warehouse, and My Sister’s Closet.

The threat to Seminary Pointe stems from the potential development of a host hotel there, to serve the convention center expansion which is currently under construction on the south side of 3rd Street between Walnut Street and College Avenue.

The Seminary Pointe real estate was recently transferred by the Monroe County government to the Monroe County capital improvement board (CIB), which is overseeing the convention center expansion project. The CIB is tasked under an interlocal agreement with identifying a site for a host hotel and selecting a hotelier.

The optimal scenario from the CIB’s point of view would be for the Bloomington redevelopment commission (RDC) to accept the Seminary Pointe block in trade for the RDC-owned College Square parcel (aka former Bunger & Robertson lot). There is a consensus view among local decision makers that the College Square property is ideally situated to serve as a host hotel site.

The land swap is one way to get the Seminary Pointe real estate into the hands of a new owner, without the strings attached from the innkeeper’s tax, which the county government used to purchase it more than a decade and a half ago. Those strings entail that the real estate be used to support and promote tourism.

Advocates with Bloomington Homes for All don’t want the Bloomington RDC to hang on to Seminary Pointe for long. They’d like to see it transferred at some nominal cost to the Avalon Community Land Trust, which would then preserve the real estate’s use as affordable housing.

It’s winding path to preservation of housing on that block that now looks unlikely. That’s becasuse the RDC declined a request from the CIB to hold off for 30 days on making a public offering of College Square, so a land swap could be negotiated. That means the CIB is forging ahead with a new RFP for a host hotel to be located on the Seminary Pointe block.

In the meantime, the RDC approved a memo that was sent to the CIB to explain why it did not want to wait 30 days. CIB president John Whikehart sent a reply. The bottom line after those two communications appears to be: There mostly likely won’t be a land swap, but it can’t be ruled out as an complete impossibility.

Some fresh insight into the CIB’s disposition towards the Seminary Pointe property, and the request from Bloomington Homes for All for lease extensions for tenants living there, could come at the CIB’s next regular meeting on May 20.

Save Seminary Pointe fundraiser

On Friday evening, Friendly Beasts Cidery felt less like a contested real-estate asset and more like a neighborhood street festival. Supporters turned out for a fundraiser aimed at keeping the block’s homes and cultural spaces intact.

One organizer, Bryce Greene, described the fundraiser’s goal in practical terms: money for lawyers. Greene said the current campaign is trying to raise at least $1,500. The immediate need, he said, is to hire an attorney to review the fundamentals of their plan and advise them on ways to engage the city government.

“It’s not for free,” Greene said, noting that even grassroots efforts carry professional costs. “It takes money to support activism, and we hope to raise some of that here.”

Beyond the legal fund, Greene framed the evening as proof-of-concept for the block itself. The cidery, once part of the Artisan Alley complex, functions as a community hub, he said, a place where organizers meet weekly and where local culture has taken root over years of shows, gatherings, and everyday use.

“This is a community space,” Greene said, emphasizing that the block combines cultural space and affordable housing. In his view, any alternative use, like a hotel or a parking facility would erase what makes the area distinctive. “Everyone understands we’re in a housing crisis,” he said, and “saving affordable housing should be the top priority in the city.”

Approaching the fundraiser from the north, the first visible sign of the evening’s activity was fresh paint on brick. On the wall of Blue Tip Billiards, some in-progress new murals served as a kind of unofficial gateway to the event.

One artist, Drake Dragoo, stood in front of an image of a great blue heron, spray paint in hand, working to finish the mural in a five-hour window from 5 to 10 p.m.

Dragoo described the work as a volunteer contribution “to help the cause … to save all the buildings” on the Seminary Block. Although he holds a day job and paints “just for fun,” his approach to the mural was workmanlike. He first sketched the heron on an iPad, then used a “doodle grid” technique, which means covering the wall with small random shapes, photographing it, and aligning his digital concept over the image.

The subject itself was partly a matter of fulfilling an artistic wish: “I’ve always wanted an excuse to paint [a great blue heron],” he said, and the timing of the event forced him to choose something he could complete in one evening. Dragoo recalled growing up near a creek in Ellettsville where he often saw herons and always thought they were “so cool.”

Alongside Dragoo, another artist, Jonatan Espinoza, was working on a different image. It blended wide eyes, a keyhole-shaped forehead mark, and vivid abstract shapes into a surreal-looking face.

Inside Friendly Beasts, the musicians included organizer Gwyn Zimmer, who played for a crowd that filtered in and out of the cidery. The turnout made it hard to get an accurate head count.

Greene said his group is not planning to try to pack next week’s CIB meeting with a throng of advocates. But he added that he and some others would be there to maintain the communication they have established with the CIB.

The CIB’s meeting next Wednesday (May 20) starts at 3 p.m.

Photos: Seminary Pointe block party (May 15, 2026)