Tag: Bunger & Robertson property

Critical decisions soon for Monroe Convention Center expansion: site, budget, uses

This week, a possible path forward for the Monroe County convention center expansion project in downtown Bloomington got charted out in a bit more detail.

At its regular meeting on Wednesday, the Monroe County capital improvement board (CIB) got an update on two separate processes. One is to bring on board a construction manager as constructor (CMc) for the convention center project. The other is to strike a deal with a hotelier.

The CIB also got updated preliminary schematics for expansion options from Schmidt Associates, the architectural firm the CIB has retained to continue its preliminary conceptual design work from five years ago.

Schmidt presented four schematics for expansion—in each compass direction from the current convention center facility, which is located on the southwest corner of 3rd Street and College Avenue.

The East option now appears to have some initial support, but that decision is probably at least a couple weeks away.

On Thursday, Bloomington’s city council held a work session to focus on the topic of the convention center expansion. That came in the wake of the April 10 split vote of the council on the CIB’s budget.  Before its April 10 meeting, the council also held a work session on the convention center expansion.

The outcome of the work session was a consensus that the city council should spell out its expectations for the project in a letter to the CIB.

The idea is to use the council’s specific role—as the fiscal body that has to approve the bonding for the construction—as a way to influence the size, design, and use of the new facility.

Continue reading “Critical decisions soon for Monroe Convention Center expansion: site, budget, uses” →

CIB budget OK’d on split city council vote, answers on land for convention center hoped for by May 8

CIB meeting from near to far: Joyce Poling, Adam Thies, Jim Silberstein, and Jay Baer. (April 10, 2024)
CIB controller Jeff Underwood shows CIB members a map of properties. (April 10, 2024)
Bloomington councilmember Isak Asare. (April 10, 2024)
From left: CIB president John Whikehart and CIB controller Jeff Underwood. (April 10, 2024)

Wednesday night, the Monroe Convention Center expansion project took another step forward, on what turned out to be a less-than-routine vote by the Bloomington city council.

The vote to approve the Monroe County capital improvement board’s (CIB’s) 2024 budget  was split 6–2. Dissent came from Kate Rosenbarger and Matt Flaherty. Not attending was Andy Ruff.

The CIB is the public body that was created by the Monroe County commissioners to provide the governance of the expansion project, which is supposed to be funded by the food and beverage tax. The extra 1-percent of tax on prepared foods and beverages has been collected since 2018.

Earlier on Wednesday, at the CIB’s regular meeting, the city council’s upcoming vote on the CIB’s $250,000 budget for 2024 was one of the highlights of the briefing from CIB treasurer, Eric Spoonmore.

Spoonmore reviewed for his CIB colleagues that the city council had voted unanimously at its March 27 meeting to ask the food and beverage tax advisory commission (FABTAC) for a recommendation on the use of the $250,000 in food and beverage tax revenue. Spoonmore called that city council vote an “easy process” that took just 10 minutes.

With the FABTAC’s recommendation on the books, the city council was set to vote on the budget later that night, Spoonmore said. He summed up the situation in a way that included a verbal hiccup, which might have foreshadowed what turned out to be nearly two hours of city council deliberations on the topic, with a split vote: “So everything is all good there, assuming that we have a similar unan– or approval from the city council.” Continue reading “CIB budget OK’d on split city council vote, answers on land for convention center hoped for by May 8” →

CIB budget cued up for Bloomington council, no big course change in sight on convention center project

From left: Monroe County councilor Trent Deckard and Bloomington city councilmember Andy Ruff. (April 5, 2024)
Bloomington city council work session. (April 5, 2024)
At the table from left: Bloomington city councilmember Kate Rosenbarger, Monroe County councilor Geoff McKim, and Bloomington city councilmember Isabel Piedmont-Smith. (April 5, 2024)

The topic of the Monroe Convention Center renovation and expansion project has recently been prominent on the work plan for Bloomington’s city council.

This coming Wednesday’s (April 10) council meeting will make two out of the last three regular meetings that the council has had an item on its agenda involving the convention center project.

At its March 27 meeting, the council voted to ask the food and beverage tax advisory commission (FABTAC) to review a $250,000 expenditure from the revenue generated by the tax, to support the 2024 budget for Monroe County’s capital improvement board (CIB). That’s the group of seven people who are providing the governance for the convention center expansion project.

This coming Wednesday, the council will be asked to approve the CIB’s budget, based on the $250,000 appropriation, which was already a part of the 2024 adopted budget for the city of Bloomington.

This past Friday, the council held a work session on the topic, at the urging of councilmember Kate Rosenbarger, who is looking to spend food and beverage tax money on projects other than the convention center.

Based on Friday’s work session discussion, besides Rosenbarger and Matt Flaherty, there’s little appetite among city councilmembers, or other elected or appointed officials, for altering course from the current plan in any significant way.

That plan is for the city to use the vast majority of its food and beverage tax revenue to pay for the convention center expansion project. Continue reading “CIB budget cued up for Bloomington council, no big course change in sight on convention center project” →

County’s side of convention center interlocal accord OK’d, now to Bloomington city council, mayor

On Wednesday morning, final approval of a key four-way agreement for the expansion and renovation of the Monroe Convention Center took another step forward.

At their regular Wednesday morning meeting, the three Monroe County Commissioners gave unanimous approval to the interlocal agreement that addresses the way that the Monroe County capital improvement board (CIB) and the different local government units will handle the expansion project.

The existing convention center stands at 3rd Street and College Avenue.

The Monroe County council, which is the fiscal body for county government, approved the interlocal agreement last week.

Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson says she supports the current version of the agreement, which has been revised since the one that her predecessor, John Hamilton, and Bloomington’s city council approved last year.

The revised interlocal agreement is supposed to appear on the city council’s Feb. 28 agenda. Continue reading “County’s side of convention center interlocal accord OK’d, now to Bloomington city council, mayor” →

Board maintains momentum for Monroe Convention Center expansion, but interlocal accord still unsigned

From left: CIB members Eric Spoonmore and Doug Bruce (Jan. 17, 2024)
From left: Bunger & Robertson attorney Jim Whitlatch and Jeff Underwood, the former city of Bloomington controller, who is being brought on as controller for the CIB. (Jan. 17, 2024)
Monroe County’s capital improvement board of managers meeting. (Jan. 17, 2024)
CIB member Adam Thies. (Jan. 17, 2024)

At its Wednesday afternoon meeting, Monroe County’s capital improvement board of managers (CIB) took the actions recommended by a three-member committee for moving ahead with the Monroe Convention Center expansion project.

One step was to authorize the issuance of an RFQ (request for qualifications) for a “construction manager as contractor” for the project. Interested firms will have three weeks to respond to the RFQ. The idea is for the three-member committee to winnow the respondents to a short-list by the next meeting of the CIB, which is now set for Feb. 14 at 3 p.m.

The full board won’t be picking from the short list at that meeting, but could ratify the committee’s shortlisters.

Also approved by the CIB at Wednesday’s meeting was the issuance of an RFQ for an owner’s representative. The idea is that none of the CIB members will have sufficient time to staff the project, and that role should be assigned to an owner’s rep.

In other action, the CIB headed towards retaining Schmidt Associates as the architect for the project, to build on the planning work that Schmidt did in 2019. The CIB voted to direct its legal counsel, Jim Whitltach, to contact Schmidt to confirm that the CIB wants Schmidt to be the main architect for the project.

Whitlatch is also supposed to ask Schmidt for a planning proposal that would allow the firm’s previous Phase 1 work to be updated to current 2024 standards.

Continue reading “Board maintains momentum for Monroe Convention Center expansion, but interlocal accord still unsigned” →