View looking northwest from the intersection of Walnut and 3rd Streets. Rendering of proposed 4th Street parking garage from July 2019. It uses the footprint of the JuanSells.com building, which Bloomington wanted to use for the replacement garage.
Rendering of a design for the 4th Street parking garage. View looking northwest from the intersection of Walnut and 3rd Streets.
After an unsuccessful attempt to use eminent domain to acquire land south of the now-demolished 4th Street parking structure, the city of Bloomington has now unveiled a design for the replacement garage. The new design is confined to the footprint of the old 352-space garage.
The view eastward along 4th Street from the northwest corner of the lot where the 4th Street parking garage previously stood. Feb. 17, 2020. (Dave Askins/Square Beacon)
Bloomington is still reserving the right to appeal its unsuccessful eminent domain action to acquire additional land to replace the 352-space parking garage that stood downtown at the corner of 4th and Walnut streets.
The view to the northwest from the corner of Walnut and 3rd Streets of the 222 S. Walnut building, which houses owner Juan Carlos Carrasquel’s real estate business. Jan. 29, 2020 (Dave Askins/Square Beacon)
In her ruling on Tuesday, Monroe County circuit court judge Holly Harvey denied Bloomington’s request to have a second try at acquiring the 222 Hats property on S. Walnut Street to build a replacement parking garage.
According to a statement issued Wednesday afternoon Bloomington is “assessing all options before us and hope to move forward with a new, efficient, green public garage.”
Those options could include appealing the case in court. But an appeal would probably mean an additional year or more delay in replacing the 352 parking spaces provided by the old garage.
The garage was closed a little more than a year ago, because it was failing structurally. Demolition was completed in late 2019. The construction phase of a replacement garage is estimated to take about a year, maybe a little less.
In a ruling issued Tuesday, Monroe County circuit court judge Holly Harvey denied Bloomington’s request to have a second try at acquiring the 222 Hats property on S. Walnut Street.
Bloomington wanted to use the land as part of the footprint of its planned replacement parking garage.
The JuanSells.com building at 222 S. Walnut next to the empty lot where the 4th Street parking garage stood, as it appeared on Dec. 2, 2019. (Dave Askins/Beacon)
Every month starting in August, Bloomington’s plan commission followed a pattern. The commission continued to the following month’s meeting one of its agenda items—the city’s proposed site plan for a replacement garage at Fourth and Walnut streets.
Demolition of the old structure, with its 352 parking spaces, started in September and is now complete.
This is the view of the 222 S. Walnut Building looking northwest on Nov. 4, 2019. According to a city press release, the elevator and stair shafts that are connected to the elevated pedestrian bridge will be removed in the coming week. (Dave Askins/Beacon)
Juan Carlos Carrasquel addresses Bloomington’s plan commission on Nov. 4, 2019 asking for denial of the city’s requested continuance, based on the argument that the site plan was not even legally in front of the commission. (Dave Askins/Beacon)
Bloomington’s plan commission voted at its regular meeting on Monday night to put off until December its consideration of the city’s proposed replacement parking garage at 4th and Walnut Streets
The short-handed plan commission voted Monday 5–0 for the continuance. That’s the minimum the nine-member commission needs for a quorum or for an affirmative vote. The site plan might be heard at the plan commission’s Dec. 9 meeting.
The reason for the repeated continuance on the site plan stems from the fact that the city does not own part of the land—the south end of the block between 4th and 3rd streets—on which the replacement garage is supposed to be built.
On Saturday (Oct. 26) morning, heavy rain in Bloomington left a puddle in the north lane of 3rd Street at the corner of Walnut and 3rd. In the foreground is the JuanSells.com building that’s the target of Bloomington’s eminent domain action. In the background is the partially demolished 4th Street parking garage. (Dave Askins/Beacon)
On Friday, the deadline set by the judge in Bloomington’s pending eminent domain case was met by both sides in the case, as both Bloomington and 222 Hats LLC filed their proposed orders by the end of the day.
Bloomington wants to buy the property at the south end of the block between 4th and 3rd streets along Walnut, so that the replacement parking structure can have a footprint that extends the length of the block. Owner Juan Carlos Carrasquel does not want to sell. The offer made, before Bloomington started the eminent domain legal proceedings, was $587,500.
Bloomington wants the court to order that “The Plaintiff, City of Bloomington, shall be and is hereby entitled by law to condemn the real estate located at 222 S. Walnut Street.”
The 4th Street parking garage is on its way to complete demolition. This photo was taken Monday, Oct. 21. Whether the 222 S. Walnut building that houses JuanSells.com eventually joins the pile of rubble will be up to the court after proposed orders are filed by the two sides by this Friday, Oct. 25. (Dave Askins/Beacon)
The Bloomington city council’s insistence on the inclusion of ground floor commercial space in the proposed replacement for the 4th Street parking garage is a factor in one of the arguments a landowner is making, in an attempt to ward off the city’s attempt to take some real estate through eminent domain action.
The central legal argument in the case is whether the inclusion of ground-floor commercial space disqualifies the parking garage project as a public use.
The Oct. 18 brief reprises arguments made at the Oct. 7 hearing, but brings into clearer focus how the city council’s insistence on the commercial space fits into those arguments.
