Market analysis – The B Square

Bloomington city council meeting on April 17, 2024. Andy Ruff attended on the Zoom video platform. Matt Flaherty was absent.

Councilmember Isak Asare distributes to his colleagues a handout from the Summit District developer. (April 17, 2024)

Overview map of Summit District PUD.

Close up proximity map of Summit District PUD.

Bloomington city councilmember Hopi Stosberg. (April 17, 2024)

Travis Vencel, with Sullivan Development (April 17, 2024)

, and Angela Parker, legal counsel for Sudbury Associates. (April 17, 2024).

Bloomington’s development services manager Jackie Scanlan (April 17, 2024)

A rezone request for about 140 acres in the southwest part of Bloomington will get continued discussion from the city council at its May 1 meeting.

At its meeting this past Wednesday, the city council heard the presentation on the Summit District PUD proposal from development services manager Jackie Scanlan, followed by remarks from Travis Vencel, with Sullivan Development, and Angela Parker, legal counsel for Sudbury Associates.

A PUD (planned unit development) zoning district is a kind of customized zoning district that uses an existing zoning district as a baseline, but diverges from it, in order to deal with challenges that are unique to the district.

On Wednesday, the council gave itself just four minutes apiece for questions of staff and the petitioner. The public comment lasted around 45 minutes.

Highlights from public comment included concerns that have been expressed since the proposal was first heard by Bloomington’s plan commission, in July of last year.

Those concerns included the potential impact on stormwater flows, traffic, and the capacity of the city’s sewer system, in addition to impacts on the visual landscape.

Public comment also included support, based on the additional estimated 4,250 units of housing the rezone could make possible, in five new neighborhoods, over the course of the next 10 years.

The city’s plan commission gave the project a 7–0 recommendation at its mid-March meeting this year.

There did not seem to be any strong overt opposition to the rezone conveyed by councilmembers, during their allotted time for questions. Continue reading “140-acre rezone proposal gets first hearing from Bloomington city council, to continue on May 1” →

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” →