Tag: redevelopment commission

Tangled web: So-called “spider” TIF for Bloomington high-speed internet deal hits procedural snag

A 2–1 vote by Bloomington’s redevelopment commission (RDC) on Tuesday night is now a procedural bump for a $50 million high-speed internet fiber deal between Bloomington and the Paris-based infrastructure firm Meridiam.

Even though two out of three was a majority of RDC members who were present and voting, Indiana state law and Bloomington’s local ordinance are both clear about the majority vote requirement for the RDC: “[T]he concurrence of three (3) commissioners is necessary to authorize any action.”

So the 2–1 vote meant the motion failed.

Bloomington’s five-member RDC was short-handed on Tuesday, because RDC president Cindy Kinnarney could not attend and no replacement for David Walter has yet been named.

Now, the RDC has set another special meeting to consider the question again, with four commissioners present. That meeting is scheduled for Monday, June 6 at 5 p.m., according to assistant city attorney Larry Allen, in an email message sent to The B Square after the meeting. Continue reading “Tangled web: So-called “spider” TIF for Bloomington high-speed internet deal hits procedural snag” →

Some details emerge on $14.4M “spider” TIF funding for Meridiam’s high-speed internet in Bloomington

Late last year, a high-speed internet fiber-to-the-home project for Bloomington showed some signs of progress after starting in April 2016.

Existing tax increment finance (TIF) area in Bloomington.

In mid-November last year, Bloomington announced that it had about six weeks earlier signed a letter of intent (LOI) with Meridiam, an international player that builds infrastructure.

The $40-million investment by Meridiam, which was announced in November, grew to $50 million in mid-May, when Bloomington made another announcement about the pending deal. The service is supposed to provide up to 1 gigabit symmetric upload-download speeds to at least 85-percent of Bloomington.

The master development agreement (MDA) is not yet signed. But some aspects of the partnership have been sketched out. The basic idea is that the network will be operated as an open access platform, which eventually any internet service provider (ISP) can use—after an exclusive period for the initial ISP.

Meridiam has requested that Bloomington establish a tax increment finance (TIF) allocation area to support the project. Bloomington officials are calling it a “spider” TIF, because of the web-like appearance that will come from following the path of conduit to be installed by Meridiam.

One of the big unanswered questions prompted by the mid-May announcement was how such a “spider” TIF would actually work.

Some of those details about the TIF district have started to emerge—at a city council work session held on Friday, and at Monday’s meeting of Bloomington’s redevelopment commission (RDC).

One of those details is the estimated benefit that Meridiam will receive from the establishment of the new TIF district—around $14.4 million over the course of 25 years. Continue reading “Some details emerge on $14.4M “spider” TIF funding for Meridiam’s high-speed internet in Bloomington” →

Bloomington OKs $400K for engineering, design of planned new technology center

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.

At its regular meeting on Monday, Bloomington’s five-member redevelopment commission approved a $403,082 contract with Axis Architecture for engineering services and design of the planned new technology in the Trades District.

The technology center is a joint project of the city’s economic and sustainable development (ESD) department and the Bloomington Economic Development Corporation. The site is now a vacant lot, north of the old Showers Company building that houses the Monroe County government center, as well as city hall.

It is just south of The Mill, which is a co-working space that has been developed as an adaptive reuse of another old Showers building. The tenants of the planned new technology center could be drawn from companies at The Mill that progress beyond the start-up phase.

An “information session” about the technology center is being hosted at The Mill on March 31. Continue reading “Bloomington OKs $400K for engineering, design of planned new technology center” →

Potential buyer passes for now on Showers admin building in Bloomington’s Trades District

Looking north towards the the Showers administration building at 10th and Morton Streets.
Looking northwest towards the the Showers administration building at 10th and Morton Streets.
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.

The old Showers Company administration building at 10th and Morton will not be purchased by Fine Tune from Bloomington’s redevelopment commission (RDC)—at least not under an agreement inked last year.

An accord approved by the RDC in mid-August of 2021 had set up the prospect for the deal. There was no requirement in the agreement that a purchase be completed.

If the deal had come to fruition, Fine Tune would have purchased the building and parking lot to the north for $400,000, after a period to assess the feasibility of converting the building to serve as its corporate headquarters.

At the start of the Feb. 21 meeting of the five-member RDC, commissioner David Walter got confirmation from Bloomington’s director of economic and sustainable development, Alex Crowley, that Fine Tune had decided not to proceed. Continue reading “Potential buyer passes for now on Showers admin building in Bloomington’s Trades District” →

Hopewell: Name of new neighborhood to be built on former hospital site announced

When some Bloomington residents came together to engage the public process connected to the city’s rezoning effort a couple of years ago, they called themselves the Hopewell Group.

They took the moniker from the hospital that was opened about 120 years ago by the Local Council of Women at First and Rogers Streets. The brick building, which was called Hopewell House, along with four and a half acres of land, was purchased from Isaac Hopewell. The headline of the Nov. 29, 1905 edition of the Bloomington World read “Open Hospital.”

Also bearing the Hopewell name will be a new neighborhood to be built on the site of the hospital that eventually replaced Hopewell House. The city of Bloomington announced the choice of name in a news release issued Friday.

The name “Hopewell Subdivision” appears on the plat that Bloomington’s redevelopment commission (RDC) has submitted to the city’s plan commission for review at its Monday, Feb. 7 meeting. Continue reading “Hopewell: Name of new neighborhood to be built on former hospital site announced” →

Bloomington’s Trades District technology center takes small step forward

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.

At its Monday meeting, Bloomington’s redevelopment commission (RDC) gave a green light to the next incremental step in the construction of a technology center north of Bloomington’s city hall building, in the Trades District.

The Trades District is a certified technology park.

What the RDC approved was a revision to the project review form for a roughly $5.5-million technology center.

The center is expected to break ground in mid-2022 and be open in early- to mid-2024, according to Bloomington director of economic and sustainable development Alex Crowley.

The timing depends in part on some back-and-forth the city is having with the federal Economic Development administration (EDA), in connection with a $3.5 million grant awarded by the EDA for the center, Crowley wrote in a late-December email to The B Square.

Wednesday’s project form revision spells out $500,000 as the amount planned for the design services for the project. The firm that has done the initial conceptual and preliminary designs is Axis Architecture + Interiors. Continue reading “Bloomington’s Trades District technology center takes small step forward” →

Plat for part of former IU hospital site gets OK to go in front of Bloomington plan commission

At its Monday meeting, Bloomington’s redevelopment commission (RDC) signed off on a proposed plat for some of the land to be redeveloped as a part of the reuse project for the former IU Health hospital at 2nd and Rogers Streets.

A plat is a map that shows how the land is divided into lots.

What the RDC was approving was the submission of the plat to the city plan commission. Once the plan commission approves it, probably at its Feb. 7 meeting, the RDC will confirm the plat with another vote, according to the RDC’s meeting information packet.

The land in question is bounded by 1st and 2nd streets on the north and south. The boundaries to the east and west are formed by Morton and Rogers streets. Continue reading “Plat for part of former IU hospital site gets OK to go in front of Bloomington plan commission” →

Multimodal update: Total right-of-way acquisition costs for 2 Bloomington paths drop by $1.4M

On Monday, two multimodal paths that make connections in the north part of town got a greenlight for their next phases: the acquisition of right-of-way from owners of property along the routes.

In this context, “multimodal” means the facility is engineered for pedestrians and bicyclists.

The approvals from the Bloomington redevelopment commission (RDC) for the next steps were uncontroversial for both projects: a northward extension of the existing B-Line Trail; and filling the gap between Monroe and Grant Streets in the multimodal path along the north side of 17th Street.

Construction for the projects won’t start until 2023.

Both approvals of right-of-way (ROW) acquisition came with a significant price drop compared to the previously estimated cost.

For the B-Line Trail extension, the drop in estimated cost to get control of the necessary ROW was from $897,000 down to $400,000, nearly half a million dollars.

For the 17th Street multimodal path, the drop in estimated ROW cost was even more—from $1,590,000 down to $650,000 for a difference of $940,000.

Between the two projects, that makes $1.4 million less in ROW costs, compared to the amount that was initially estimated. Continue reading “Multimodal update: Total right-of-way acquisition costs for 2 Bloomington paths drop by $1.4M” →

A tour of Trades District parking structure: “I don’t wake up every morning wanting to build parking garages.”

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One of the two parking garages currently under construction in downtown Bloomington is close enough to completion that on Tuesday afternoon a dozen city insiders and media types got a tour.

Just north of city hall, the opening of the Trades District garage, with around 380 parking spaces, is on course for late March. But enough of the main elements are in place that it’s already unmistakable as a parking garage.

That contrasts with the replacement facility for the 4th Street deck, which is not due to come online until August of 2021. So it’s still coming out of the ground.

Of the 540 spaces to be constructed in the 4th Street replacement garage, 352 count as replacements for the spaces that were housed in the previous 4th Street structure. It was closed at the end of 2018 due to structural failure, and demolished last year.

Leading Tuesday’s tour were Bloomington’s director for economic and sustainable development, Alex Crowley, and Josh Scism, with Core Planning Strategies, the firm that’s managing both parking garage projects.

Scism focused the group’s attention on the structural elements: concrete, cabling, pumps and the like.

Crowley took the chance to review with the group the case for the city’s decision to build the garage, but hedged against any perceived enthusiasm for parking garages generally. “I don’t wake up every morning wanting to build parking garages,” Crowley said. Continue reading “A tour of Trades District parking structure: “I don’t wake up every morning wanting to build parking garages.”” →

Bloomington RDC greenlights parking control equipment for two new parking garages

On Monday night, action by Bloomington’s redevelopment commission (RDC) ensured that a contract is in place, with Evens Time, Inc., to provide parking control equipment for the two new parking garages currently under construction.

The view of the 4th Street garage, now under construction and scheduled for completion in August of 2021. The view is to the northwest, across Walnut Street, from the 3rd Street end of the block. Oct. 5, 2020 (Askins/Square Beacon)

One of the garages is a replacement facility for the 4th Street deck, which was determined to have structural issues and was demolished last year. The new garage is due to come online in August of 2021.

The other garage is being built in the Trades District to the west of city hall. It’s closer to completion and is expected to open in March of 2021.

The equipment covered in the roughly $335,000 contract includes barrier arms, magnetic coils, credit card exit terminals, barcode imaging kits and the like—the hardware necessary to admit and release parking patrons into the garages.

Before the RDC voted to approve the contract, RDC member Eric Sandweiss asked how the dollar amount for the contract stacks up against the budgeted amount for the equipment. City controller Jeff Underwood said $200,000 was budgeted for equipment for each garage, which put the contract with Evens Time, Inc. “well underneath” the budgeted figure. Continue reading “Bloomington RDC greenlights parking control equipment for two new parking garages” →