Bloomington city councilmembers from near to far: Matt Flaherty, Sydney Zulich, Dave Rollo, Andy Ruff, Isabel Piedmont-Smith, Hopi Stosberg, Isak Asare, and Courtney Daily. Kate Rosenbarger attended via Zoom. (March 27, 2024)
Councilmembers applaud Bloomington city clerk Nicole Bolden’s achievement of the status of master municipal clerk. (March 27, 2024)
An additional Bloomington police officer was assigned to city council chambers. (March 27, 2024)
Many in the audience held signs that read: “Cease Fire Now”. (March 27, 2024)
Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson. (March 27, 2024)
Bloomington city council meeting audience. (March 27, 2024).
Bloomington city council meeting. (March 27, 2024)
On Wednesday night, Bloomington’s city council just barely passed a resolution opposing the construction of a pipeline in north central Indiana for the diversion of water from the Wabash River.
The resolution, which had been put forward by Andy Ruff, got support from just five councilmembers, which is a majority on the nine-member body. Voting for it were: Ruff, Dave Rollo, Isabel Piedmont- Smith, Hopi Stosberg and Courtney Daily.
Abstaining on the vote were: Matt Flaherty, Sydney Zulich, Isak Asare, and Kate Rosenbarger.
The resolution passed with some amendments, including one that added a request that the General Assembly establish a comprehensive water management plan.
The council had discussed the resolution opposing the LEAP pipeline at its March 6 meeting, but postponed it until this week.
Before the council voted, Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson gave a clear indication she would not be signing the resolution, or any similar resolutions in the future.
Addressing the council, Thomson put it like this: “While it is your prerogative to pass resolutions that express viewpoints on matters that we do not oversee, as a matter of principle, I will not be signing any resolutions that do not directly impact the business of our city.”
From left: Eric Spoonmore, John Whikehart (March 20, 2024)
JS Held interview team (March 5, 2024)
From near to far: Joyce Poling, Adam Thies, Jim Silberstein, and Jay Baer (March 20, 2024)
JS Held will be the owner’s representative for the Monroe Convention Center expansion project.
At its regular monthly meeting on Wednesday, the seven-member Monroe County capital improvement board approved a motion for selection of JS Held as owner’s rep, after a three-member board committee interviewed the firm and a second company, The Veridus Group, in the first week of March.
The motion approved by the board authorized CIB president John Whikehart to hammer out the details of the arrangement between the CIB and JS Held.
JS Held will be a familiar name locally as the project manager for the Hopewell redevelopment project and the consultant on the Showers West renovation project, among others.
In order to pay JS Held for its work, the CIB will need approval of a budget from the city council, which last year appropriated $250,000 of food and beverage tax revenue for the 2024 fiscal year.
BT continues to claw back ridership numbers after the 2020 pandemic hit.
A BT bus heads north on Walnut Street (March 20, 2024).
The view is to the west. The image is of BT’s current facility on Grimes Lane, from Monroe County’s online property lookup system.
Bloomington Transit (BT) is looking to build a new $43.75-million administrative, operations and maintenance complex, to replace the one currently at Grimes Lane.
On Tuesday night, the BT board approved a resolution that is supposed to help pay for that new complex. The resolution authorizes BT general manager John Connell to apply for $35 million in federal funding for the 2025 fiscal year.
The amount requested from the feds is 80-percent of the cost, which is typical for federal transit funding. A 20-percent local match is expected. That means BT will have a balance of $8.75 million to match with local money.
The specific source of funds, which are available for this type of project through the FTA (Federal Transit Authority), is Section 5339(b) of Title 49 of the United States Code.
According to BT grants and procurement specialist Zac Huneck, the total estimated cost for the new facility is $54.4 million, which includes $10 million for land acquisition, and $600,000 for architectural and engineering work.
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. The new east-west express route has been branded by BT as the Green Line.
It looks unlikely that the new BT operations center will be built on an expanded footprint at the current Grimes Lane facility. One factor weighing against the Grimes Lane location is that it sits at least partly in a floodway. The same is true for neighboring real estate.
The floodway is basically a deal-breaker, because the new facility is envisioned to include not just more raw square footage, but indoor storage. The indoor storage is needed to protect the battery-electric fleet to which BT is gradually transitioning. Building indoor storage in a floodway would almost certainly never win the required approvals from the feds.
BT has 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 real estate where the Grimes Lane facility sits is owned by Indiana University. Bloomington Transit and IU Campus Bus services are co-located there. So one of the strategies included in BT’s strategic plan, adopted early this year, is to expand opportunities for collaboration and integration with IU Campus Bus, beyond mere co-location.
The 2024 budget for Bloomington Transit includes $12.5 million for land acquisition to build a new facility. The idea had been to use about $2.5 million of local money to match a hoped-for federal grant that would cover the cost of the roughly $12.5-million land acquisition.
In an email to The B Square, responding to a question about the land acquisition costs and how that fits into the $35-million request, Huneck wrote: “We determined that we can move forward with land acquisition utilizing existing federal funds from previous years, alongside some local funds.”
About the logic behind that choice, Huneck wrote, “We’ve pivoted and believe seizing the opportunity to apply for a larger amount of funding is more strategic, given over $1B in funding is available.”
Pursuing the $35 million in grant funding this year could mean shortening the overall timeline for the project, Huneck, indicated. He put it like this: “If successful, we will be able to accelerate facility construction by one year so we may start realizing the full scope of our ongoing projects—transition to zero-emission fleet, the Green Line, boosting frequencies, and potential service beyond city boundaries.”
About BT’s chances for winning the grant, Huneck wrote: “We believe we have a good shot this year. And should we not be awarded the grant this year, we’ll be in an excellent position to be successful in 2025 using whatever post-application feedback from FTA we would receive, with no downside to our original plans.”
In early March, when general manager John Connell briefed the city council on BT’s plans, he asked for some kind of letter from the council in support of its Section 5339(b) grant application.
On Wednesday, city council staff administrator/attorney Stephen Lucas responded to an emailed B Square question by indicating he does not believe there will be an item about BT’s federal grant application on next week’s (March 27) meeting agenda.
But Lucas wrote that he is working with Connell and council president Isabel Piedmont-Smith to nail down a meeting date sometime in April for the council to vote on an item in support of the federal grant application.
Based on February ridership numbers for 2024, BT’s fixed route service continues to claw back ridership after the sharp downturn during the COVID-19 pandemic. The 289,453 rides in February 2024 are 20 percent more than February 2023. But the February numbers this year are still just 87 percent of the 330,889 rides given in 2019, the last full year before the pandemic hit.
BT continues to claw back ridership numbers after the 2020 pandemic hit.
A BT bus heads north on Walnut Street (March 20, 2024).
The view is to the west. The image is of BT’s current facility on Grimes Lane, from Monroe County’s online property lookup system.
For a special meeting on Tuesday, Bloomington’s plan commission has set an agenda to hear a single petition—for the rezone of nearly 140 undeveloped acres in the southwest part of the city.
It’s located northwest of RCA Community Park.
If the rezone for the Summit District is eventually approved by the city council, the proposal from Sudbury Partners, LLC could lead to the eventual construction of around 4,250 new housing units, plus commercial uses like a hotel, as well as additional roadway, trail, and utility connections. Sudbury also intends to dedicate land for a trailhead and a fire station on the eastern side of the site.
The build-out of the project is planned in five stages, corresponding to neighborhoods, which are named after mountains (Shasta Meadow, Denali Woods, Everest Center, Sandia Place, Whitney Glen). The first stage, with 550 housing units, is not projected for completion until 2028. Later stages call for completion by 2034.
The plan commission’s job on Tuesday night will be to send the rezone request to the city council with one of three messages—a recommendation to approve it, a recommendation not to approve it, or explicitly with no recommendation.
On Friday morning, oral arguments were heard in a constitutional challenge that the city of Bloomington has made to a 2019 state law, which causes annexation waivers to expire after 15 years.
The areas rendered in black, Area 1A and Area 1B, had their lawsuits with constitutional claims dismissed by the city. The remaining five five areas, shown in different colors were subject of the arguments made on Friday, March 15, 2024.
After arguments were presented, which lasted about an hour, judge Nathan Nikirk, did not have any questions for either side. He gave attorneys 30 days to submit their proposed orders in the case.
Nikirk is presiding over the case as a special judge out of Lawrence County, after judge Kelsey Hanlon recused herself.
The city’s lawsuits about those two areas (Area 1A and Area 1B) are no longer among the cases that are consolidated under one cause number, and which were heard on Friday.
The city initially filed seven lawsuits, one for each annexation area, but subsequently dismissed the cases involving Area 1A and Area 1B, with prejudice.
Panorama of convention center looking to the southwest as seen in August of 2022.
Bloomington city councilmember Kate Rosenbarger.
Monroe County capital improvement board president John Whikehart.
Downtown Bloomington, Inc. executive director Talisha Coppock.
Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson.
Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce director of advocacy Christopher Emge.
Bloomington corporation counsel Margie Rice.
The governance structure for the expansion of the Monroe Convention center, which currently stands at 3rd Street and College Avenue, is now settled.
On Wednesday night, Bloomington’s city council approved its side of a four-way interlocal agreement about the way the Monroe County capital improvement board (CIB) will interact with other local units, to handle the convention center expansion project.
The vote on the nine-member city council was 7–1. Dissenting was Kate Rosenbarger.
The tally does not add to 9, because the District 5 seat is currently vacant, pending the selection of a replacement at Saturday’s (March 2) vacancy caucus to be held by the Democratic Party.
Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson attended Wednesday’s meeting, but did not address the council. After the council’s vote, Thomson responded to a B Square question by saying she would be signing the agreement as soon as it is presented to her.
The aerial image looking to the east is from Monroe County’s online property lookup system.
Griffin Realty offices lookin south on College Avenue. (B Square file photo)
The 3rd Street Bloomington police station (B Square file photo)
On Tuesday night, a payment of $11,250 to Griffin Realty was approved by Bloomington’s board of public works. The payment was part of the board’s routine authorization of claims that appear at the end of every board meeting agenda.
The payment to Griffin Realty was for work that was done by the real estate firm in the fall of last year, to advertise and market the city’s 3rd Street police station headquarters.
At that time, the plan that former Bloomington mayor John Hamilton’s administration had set in motion was to sell the police station, and to use the proceeds from the sale to help pay for the renovations to the Showers West building, which was supposed to be the future home of the police department.
When the Bloomington’s city council voted unanimously in mid-December last year, to reject a proposed $4.4-million sale of the police station building, that meant Griffin Realty did not receive its 4-percent commission.
Griffin Realty is owned by former Bloomington deputy mayor Don Griffin, who was unsuccessful in his 2023 bid for election as mayor.
If the deal had been approved by the city council, the $4.4-million sale to GMS-Pavillion would have translated into a payment of $176,000 to Griffin’s firm.
The much smaller amount that Griffin Realty was paid does not appear to be spelled out explicitly in the original contract.
But an amendment to the agreement does specify compensation in addition to the 4-percent commission. The amendment calls for compensation at a rate of $150 per hour for the marketing services that Griffin Realty provided.
At Tuesday’s board of public works meeting, Bloomington’s director of public works, Adam Wason, told the board that the city’s legal department, the controller’s office and Griffin Realty had discussed the compensation for the real estate firm’s effort and concluded the contract amendment was “a fair way to compensate for the services provided.”
The amendment does not appear to be dated, but the original file name of the document, which was provided to The B Square by city attorney Larry Allen, includes the string “20231222.” That suggests the amendment was signed on Dec. 22, 2023, about a week after the city council’s vote.
The invoice for the work submitted by Griffin Realty says the firm put in a total of 75 hours starting on Oct. 24, 2023, averaging about 8.5 hours a week. The work included “doing research, preparing materials for marketing, general marketing, data input in Multiple Listing Service and LoopNet,” according to the invoice.
The work also included “communicating with prospects, preparing a purchase agreement for buyer #1, presenting it to the City, preparing counter offers and presenting to each side,” according to the invoice.
The three offers secured by Griffin Realty were for $4.4 million, $3.2 million and $4.85 million.
Given that new Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson’s administration has now changed course on the Showers West project, there does not appear to be any realistic chance the city would sell the 3rd Street police station anytime soon.
But under the terms of the amended agreement, Griffin Realty could eventually see a bigger payment than the $11,250 approved by the board of public works on Tuesday. One scenario where that could happen would entail the city’s eventual sale the property, to one of the three buyers from which Griffin received offers. In that scenario, Griffin Realty would be paid 4 percent of the gross sale price—minus the $11,250.
Bloomington plan commissioner Jillian Kinzie. (Feb. 12, 2024)
Bloomington plan commissioners Chris Smith and Hopi Stosberg. (Feb. 12, 2024)
Bloomington plan commissioner Brad Wisler. (Feb. 12, 2024)
A rezone request from the Indiana Center for Recovery (ICR) will get a second hearing at the next scheduled meeting of Bloomington’s plan commission, on March 11.
But based on Monday night’s deliberations, in March it will be a tough slog for ICR to win a recommendation of approval from the plan commission for its rezone request.
The center would like to build two group home facilities in central Bloomington, near Walker and 1st Streets—one on the north side of West 1st Street, and the other on the south side. The homes would be used for treating patients with substance use disorders and mental and behavioral health conditions.
The ICR wants the land rezoned to MH (mixed use healthcare), which was previously the zoning district for the property, before it was rezoned from MH to R3 as a part of the 2021 adoption of a new zoning map for the city.
It is Bloomington’s city council that will have the final say on ICR’s requested rezoning—even if the plan commission’s recommendation is something the council can weigh.
But looks likely that at least two councilmembers would vote against the rezone, if the question is eventually put in front of them. On Monday, councilmember Isabel Piedmont-Smith spoke from the public mic, already in opposition to the rezone proposal.
Hopi Stosberg, who is the city council’s appointed to the plan commission, said that the requested rezone “feels like a step back instead of a step forward.”
This past week’s big annexation news was the cancellation of Thursday’s hearing on a cross motion for summary judgment in a constitutional challenge that was filed by Bloomington two years ago.
This table, from a recent court filing by the city of Bloomington, sums up the impact of the disputed 2019 law. The left column shows the outcome if the 2019 law is valid and is applied to remonstration signatures: Annexation is stopped outright in five areas (red) and is subject to judicial review in two areas (blue). The right column shows the outcome if the 2019 is unconstitutional: Annexation can proceed forward with no additional steps in five areas (green) and is subject to judicial review in two areas (blue).
But that hearing will be rescheduled. The hearing was canceled, only because the special judge in the case, Kelsey Hanlon out of Owen County, recused herself, due to a potential conflict involving her husband’s recent transfer of employment to Monroe County’s legal department.
At the start of the year, the nonprofit organization County Residents Against Annexation (CRAA) had expressed some hope that Bloomington would withdraw its lawsuit.
The constitutional question concerns a 2019 law, enacted by the state legislature, which voided many of the annexation waivers that Bloomington was relying on for a successful annexation effort. The waivers were supposed to ensure that landowners with such waivers attached to their property would not have their signatures counted for any remonstration against annexation.
CRAA president Margaret Clements is quoted in a Jan. 2 news release saying, “Just as the City of Bloomington unilaterally and involuntarily attempted to annex property in the county, only the City of Bloomington can unilaterally end the dispute.”
But it is now clear that new Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson’s administration will be looking to proceed with the litigation of all of the pending annexation cases.
Excerpt from construction drawings for the Showers West renovation.
Bloomington redevelopment commission member Sue Sgambelluri. (Feb. 5, 2024)
Bloomington police union president Paul Post. (Feb. 5, 2024)
Bloomington redevelopment commission members Randy Cassady and Deborah Deborah Myerson. (Feb. 5, 2024)
Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson. (Feb. 5, 2024)
Bloomington RDC members from left: John West, Deb Hutton, Sue Sgambelluri, Randy Cassady, Deborah Myerson. (Feb. 5, 2024)
At a meeting attended by Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson, the city’s redevelopment commission (RDC) voted unanimously (with one recusal) on Monday to reject all the construction bids for the Showers West renovation project.
The resolution stated that the bids for a total of around $12.7 million were responsive to the project design—which put both fire administration and police operations in the Showers West portion of the city hall building.
But as the wording of the resolution put it, the bids no longer meet “the vision and scope of the project.” That’s the project that Thomson’s predecessor, John Hamilton, had put in motion starting in the summer of 2022.
The change in vision for the project was consistent with the opposition from the police union, which has, from the time the idea was first floated, resisted the move—citing security concerns about Showers West, as well as entrance and egress issues.
Thomson told the RDC that the future of the Showers West project would be decided in “a collaborative process” with the city council to make sure that “whatever we do with police, in the end, it is in the interest of the future of public safety.”
Thomson added that she wants to make sure that “we really look at how we’re collaborating overall with public safety, as it’s being defined in the 21st century.”
[Updated on Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024 at 2:30 p.m. The city of Bloomington communications director, Angela Van Rooy, issued a statement with a description of two slides that were used by the Showers West working group, showing cost comparisons of four alternatives for moving ahead with different components of the project. Here’s a link: .pdf of combined email message and two slides]
