Shown are recent student-oriented housing developments approved since 2019.
The property where The Great Wall restaurant formerly stood on North Walnut Street, across from the northern tip of Miller-Showers Park, is now the site of a proposed 8-story student-oriented apartment building.
The building would include a mix of 3-bedroom, 4-bedroom and 5-bedroom apartments, for a total of 426 bedrooms.
Looking east at 14th and Dunn streets. (Jan. 31, 2022)
Looking northwest at 14th and Dunn streets. (Jan. 31, 2022)
The Standard under construction just south of 14th Street. (Jan. 31, 2022)
Sidewalk on the south side of 14th Street, looking east. (Jan. 31, 2022)
At its regular Tuesday meeting, Bloomington’s three-member board of public works upheld about $25,000 in fines on Landmark Properties.
The developer is constructing a 1000-bed student-oriented housing development a few blocks south of Indiana University’s football stadium.
Landmark had appealed the fines, which were imposed for violations of its maintenance of traffic plan. That’s a plan that the city requires all developers to submit and follow in the course of construction. It includes signage and barricades for pedestrian walkways when sidewalks are closed, with directions to an alternate route.
The University Properties IX project (red) is shown here in context with other recent student-oriented housing developments.
At its Monday meeting, Bloomington’s plan commission unanimously approved a site plan by University Properties IX for a six-story building with 105 apartments at 19th and Dunn streets, across from the Indiana University Memorial Stadium.
Given the 33 dwelling units currently on the multiple-parcel site—spread across single-family, fourplex, and multifamily structures—the development proposal from University Properties IX would net 72 additional units.
During public commentary on Monday, it emerged that a property owner just to the north of the project has an easement for parking spaces on the site to be developed, and will likely file suit to ask for an injunction to block the project.
Approved by Bloomington’s plan commission on Monday night was a site plan for a project that would demolish the old Colonial Crest apartment complex, now called The Arch, on the north side of town.
In the place of 206 apartments and 393 bedrooms, spread across 15 separate two-story buildings, the developer plans to construct four residential buildings with a total of 241 apartments and 675 bedrooms, according to a letter from Smith Design Group, which is the consultant for the Aspen TOPCO II Acquisitions project.
That nets roughly 270 more bedrooms on the same site.
It’s basically the same site plan that the plan commission approved in mid-June.
According to Bloomington senior zoning planner Eric Greulich, the big difference between the version approved by the plan commission on Monday, compared to what was approved three months ago, is the lack of any new public roads proposed inside the project site.
If demolition and construction go according to plan, by July of 2023 the former Kmart on Bloomington’s east side will be transformed into a multi-family and student-oriented housing development.
Bloomington’s plan commission gave the project a 7–0 vote of approval at its regular Monday meeting. Monday’s hearing came after one in May that was originally supposed to be continued in June, but was delayed until this week.
Queued up for possible inclusion on the Bloomington plan commission’s May 10 agenda is a proposal to redevelop the former Kmart site on the south side of 3rd Street in the College Mall area.
But the proposal would demolish the vacant Kmart building and excavate the parking lot, for construction of a 340-unit multi-family and student-oriented housing development, offering a total of 906 bedrooms.
The layout of the project would include five residential buildings, one leasing and amenity building, and a 385-space parking structure. The site will include another 100 surface parking spaces, and 57 parallel parking spaces, for a total of 542 parking spaces.
The student-oriented apartments would be constructed in the three buildings on the northern part of the site. The multi-family housing would be constructed in the two buildings on the southern part of the site.
The units will all be rental, none for sale as condos, and will be offered at the prevailing market rental rate in Bloomington. So the project will not include any “affordable units” defined in terms of HUD standards for area median income (AMI).
The first two public presentations about a zoning map revision for the city of Bloomington are in the books.
R4 (Residential Urban) and MS (Mixed-Use Student Housing) zoning districts don’t yet appear on Bloomington’s zoning map. They’re proposed to be established in the olive- and wine-colored areas. The image links to the zoning map project page.
Tuesday night’s presentation by the city’s development services manager, Jackie Scanlan, included an introduction to the online tools that city planners have built for the project.
Also on Tuesday, Scanlan gave an overview of the mapping project, which comes after last year’s update to the text of the city’s unified development ordinance (UDO).
That text update included the creation of some new zoning districts, like R4 (Residential Urban) and MS (Mixed-Use Student Housing), which don’t yet appear anywhere on the zoning map of the city.
A developer has already requested that the Brownstone Terrace, south of the Indiana University football stadium, be rezoned to MS, so that it can be replaced with a larger student-oriented housing development. That request has been recommended for approval by the plan commission and will appear on an upcoming city council agenda.
During Thursday’s presentation, which focussed on the MS zoning district, Scanlan said it’s important to proactively rezone parcels to MS, based on the city’s comprehensive plan, and not just respond in a reactive way to petition requests.
While the placement of proposed MS zoning districts on the map was based on the city’s comprehensive plan, spots on the map for the R4 district were more or less calculated. The calculation was based on those lots in existing R2 and R3 districts that have less than the minimum lot size for R3 districts, and that can be analyzed as a cluster. Continue reading “Two meetings held on remapping of Bloomington’s zoning districts, more to come”→
Aerial view from Monroe County GIS system of the Brownstone Terrace in spring 2020.
On Monday night, a project that would replace the predominantly student-rented Brownstone Terrace with a larger student-oriented development called The Standard got a unanimous recommendation of approval from Bloomington’s plan commission.
The specific request was for a rezoning. That’s why it now requires approval by Bloomington’s city council.
The rezoning request is from planned unit development (PUD) to a new zoning classification in the recently adopted unified development ordinance (UDO), which is multi-use student housing (MS).
The Standard would demolish several two-story buildings with a total of 120 apartments. The PUD zoning for the current project was approved by the plan commission in 1984.
Aerial view from Monroe County GIS system of the Brownstone Terrace in spring 2020.
At its regular monthly meeting on Monday, Bloomington’s plan commission will get a first look at a request from The Standard at Bloomington, LLC to rezone the property where Brownstone Terrace now stands, about three blocks southwest of the Indiana University Memorial football stadium.
If the rezoning—from planned unit development (PUD) to multi-use student housing (MS)—is eventually approved, The Standard would demolish several two-story buildings with a total of 120 apartments. In their place, The Standard would build a new student-oriented, residential development with 433 apartments and 1,072 bedrooms in five- and six-story buildings. A parking garage with 681 parking spaces would be built as a part of the development.
