Rendering of gateway monolith, birdseye view from the southeast.
Joe Davis (Oct. 10, 2023)
Bloomington BPW from left: Jane Kupersmith, Elizabeth Karon, and Kyla Deckard (Oct. 10, 2023)
After two and a half hours on Tuesday night, Bloomington’s board of public works adjourned its meeting without acting on three controversial agenda items.
The image, looking east, is dated April 2020. It’s from the Pictometry module of Monroe County’s online property lookup system. Annotation by The B Square.
Construction bid package opening at city hall. (Sept. 26, 2023)
Ahead of the scheduled ceremonial groundbreaking on Thursday, about $8 million in construction contracts have been awarded to build a technology center in Bloomington’s Trades District, which is part of a certified technology park in the downtown.
It was Bloomington’s redevelopment commission (RDC) that approved the construction contracts, at its regular meeting on Monday. At a special meeting last Wednesday, the RDC had approved an extra $3.8 million in funding for the center, which now has a budget of about $12.8 million.
Wednesday’s special meeting had already been put on the calendar, before the opening of bids last Tuesday, in case the bids came in higher than budgeted, and they did.
Awarded at Monday’s meeting were the contracts for bid package #1 (site work), and for the bid packages #2 (general trades) and #4 (roofing).
The image, looking east, is dated April 2020. It’s from the Pictometry module of Monroe County’s online property lookup system. Annotation by The B Square.
Construction bid package opening at city hall. (Sept. 26, 2023)
At a special meeting on Wednesday, Bloomington’s five-member redevelopment commission (RDC) approved an additional $3.8 million in funding to construct a technology center.
The 3-story 22,000-square-foot building—which will stand in the southeast corner of the Trades District, just south of The Mill coworking space—is supposed to provide office space for technology companies that are beyond the startup phase.
The additional $3.8 million in TIF (tax increment finance) money adds to $2.1 million of TIF money the RDC had approved two years ago.
When it’s added to the $5.9 million in TIF money, and to the $3 million in former CRED (community revitalization enhancement district) funds, and $310,000 from the city of Bloomington utilities green infrastructure fund, the extra money brings the total local contribution to about $9.2 million.
At its regular Monday meeting, Bloomington’s five-member redevelopment commission approved a $49,825 agreement with Indiana University’s Public Policy Institute, to help meet state requirements for reporting about the city’s certified technology park (CTP).
Bloomington’s CTP is a 65-acre chunk of downtown land located north and west of city hall. The CTP includes the Trades District, a 12-acre area that is currently the focus of redevelopment efforts.
Added by The B Square: color for remaining buildings, streets, and alleys.
Hopewell West Primary Plat
Hopewell West Primary Plat
2nd and Rogers streets, looking southeast (July 15, 2023). The Kohr Building and the parking garage are visible in the right part of the frame.
The redevelopment of the former IU Health hospital site at 2nd and Rogers streets took another step forward this past Monday.
At its regular monthly meeting, Bloomington’s plan commission approved the primary plat for the chunk of the project that is now called Hopewell West. It’s bounded by 2nd Street and 1st Street on the north and south. The eastern boundary is Rogers Street.
A plat is a detailed map that outlines the boundaries, dimensions, and other essential features of a specific land parcel.
IU Health has demolished all but two buildings as part of the purchase agreement with Bloomington’s redevelopment commission. The new plat for the land puts the two remaining buildings on their own lots—the parking garage with its 390 parking spaces, and the Kohr administration building, which the city is looking to redevelop as income-restricted housing.
The new plat also divides the block with three new segments of public streets—two running north-south and one running east-west. The plat also adds some new alleys.
The primary plat for Hopewell West had unanimous support from the seven of nine plan commissioners who were present. (Brad Wisler and Ellen Rodkey were absent.)
The new plat does not need approval from the Bloomington city council. But the plat depends on one approval that is under the control of the city council—the vacation of two alleys in the northeast corner of the block.
That means sometime in the coming weeks, the council can expect to see an alley vacation on its agenda.
On Friday, the city issued a news release announcing that there will be groundbreaking for the Hopewell project on July 21, 2023 at 3:30 p.m.
The image, looking east, is dated April 2020. It’s from the Pictometry module of Monroe County’s online property lookup system. Annotation by The B Square.
From left: Bloomington city councilmembers Matt Flaherty and Steve Volan
Alex Crowley, Bloomington’s director of economic and sustainable development
Pat East, executive director of The Mill
A 3-story 22,000-square-foot technology center in Bloomington’s Trade’s District got the final piece of its funding approved by the city council at last Wednesday’s meeting.
Approved by the city council on Wednesday, with eight of nine votes of support, was a roughly $3-million appropriation from the city’s general fund. Steve Volan abstained.
In round numbers, the $3 million approved by the city council adds to a $3.5 million grant from the federal Economic Development Administration (EDA), and about $2 million in tax increment finance (TIF) money, which was authorized by Bloomington’s redevelopment commission (RDC), to cover the roughly $8.5-million cost of the building.
The new technology center is supposed to coordinate with The Mill, a nearby coworking space, to provide support for emerging tech companies that have progressed beyond the incubation phase and have shown some commercial viability. The effort will be led by former Bloomington mayor John Fernandez, who was recently hired as senior vice president for innovation and strategic partnerships at The Mill.
The city council’s approval on Wednesday came after a postponement from its meeting a week earlier.
The postponement was related to a source of friction between some councilmembers and the administration, over the origin of the general fund money that was appropriated by the council on Wednesday.
It was a move that put a significant sum behind the city’s preferred site for the planned expansion of the Monroe Convention Center. But it came with at least some amount of controversy for what was supposed to be a city-county collaboration.
For some of the actors involved in convention center planning at the time, it had been an open question: Should the expansion be located north or south of the existing convention center at 3rd Street and College Avenue? The city’s purchase appeared to be an attempt to settle that question.
The price tag was just under the $5-million statutory threshold that would have required the city council’s approval. And the deal still did not put the whole block under the city’s control.
The city was still negotiating with a different property owner for the remaining 0.4 acres, which consists of about 45 surface parking spaces.
Now, Bloomington’s RDC is set to buy the remaining part of the block.
Looking north from the top of the Trades District parking garage. Cutting across the foreground is 10th Street. The Mill, with its sawtooth roofline, is visible to the right about mid-way up the frame. (Jan. 28, 2023)
The now open space in downtown that’s roughly bounded by 10th and 11th streets, and Rogers and Madison streets, will get some renewed focus and attention for development.
The area is known as the Trades District, which is a 12-acre portion of a larger area comprising Bloomington’s certified technology park.
The real estate was purchased by Bloomington’s redevelopment commission more than a decade ago.
At its meeting last Monday, Bloomington’s redevelopment commission (RDC) approved an agreement that pays The Dimension Mill, Inc. $200,000 each year for two years to “advance the City’s objectives for the Tech Center, Trades District and Bloomington’s innovation ecosystem…”
The Dimension Mill, Inc. is a non-profit corporation that operates the coworking space known as The Mill, in the former dimension mill of the Showers Brother furniture factory.
Left is the existing 3rd Street Bloomington police station. Right is the western part of the former Showers Brothers factory building currently owned by CFC properties.
A decision on an $8.75-million real estate deal to expand the footprint of city hall inside its existing building has been postponed by Bloomington’s city council.
What has been delayed until next week is a decision to approve the Bloomington redevelopment commission’s purchase agreement for the western part of the former Showers Brothers factory building that houses city hall.
It’s part of Bloomington mayor John Hamilton’s plan to put both the city’s main police station and fire department administration in the same historic city hall building. The proposed move is part of a bigger plan estimated at over $30-million—which includes reconstructing the flood-damaged Fire Station #1 and remodeling Fire Station #3.
Wednesday’s vote, which was unanimous among the eight councilmembers present, came after more than two hours of deliberations.
Absent was Jim Sims, who in early December described as “a joke” a “Plan B” alternative, which involves just renovation of the existing 3rd Street police station.
The approval of the building purchase is part of the same agenda item as the ordinance that appropriates the proceeds of $29.5 million in bonds that have already been issued. Based on the wording of the bond issuance, the proceeds have to be used for public safety purposes.
Postponement came at the point in the meeting when Ron Smith moved an amendment that would remove from the appropriation ordinance the reference to the building purchase. The amendment would also prohibit use of the bond proceeds for purchase of the Showers building.
