Urban Indiana

Monroe County looks to build housing development with COVID relief dollars

Monroe County has plans to build a new income-restricted housing development with 40 to 60 homes funded by federal COVID-19 relief dollars.

County Attorney Jeff Cockerill said the project is still in its early stages. Several details have yet to be worked out, including where the development will be built.

The county has identified a handful of potential sites but has yet to decide on one, according to Cockerill.

"There are different concerns with each property," Cockerill said. "The further away we get from the city, the less expensive land is. However, we want to build affordable housing — and so, transportation issues are there."

More below:
https://indianapublicmedia.org/news/monroe-county-looks-to-build-housing-development-with-covid-relief-dollars.php

'Too many questions': Bloomington police station sale stalls

The Bloomington City Council unanimously rejected the sale of its police department headquarters on Wednesday after the families who donated the land pointed to a 1923 deed specifying the land must be used for a public park.

The city is transitioning the police department out of the building and merging it and the fire department's operations into the Showers building where other city departments are based. The decision to purchase the west part of the building was narrowly passed by the council earlier this year.

The three proposals the council were weighing were each from student housing developers. Mayor John Hamilton's preferred bid is $4.4 million from Bloomington-based GMS-Pavilion Properties LLC, which is already a major student housing landlord in the city. The other two offers come from New Jersey-based Aptitude Development for $4.8 million and Chicago-based UP Campus Student Living for $3.2 million. The land is valued at $3.2 million.

More below:
https://www.insideindianabusiness.com/articles/too-many-questions-bloomington-police-station-sale-stalls

Board looks to potential fall 2026 opening of Monroe Convention Center expansion

The now hoped-for timeline for the opening of an expansion to the Monroe Convention Center is fall or winter of 2026.

That's a takeaway from the third meeting of the capital improvement board (CIB) that was created by county commissioners in July.

Still pending is the ratification by Monroe County of an interlocal agreement that outlines how county government will work with the city of Bloomington on the Monroe Convention Center expansion.

More below:
https://bsquarebulletin.com/2023/12/14/board-looks-to-potential-fall-2026-opening-of-monroe-convention-center-expansion/#more-54554

Boutique hotel above former Peoples Bank on Kirkwood OK'd for height

The former Peoples Bank building on Kirkwood Avenue now has a future as a 5-story 47-room boutique hotel.

That is made possible by Bloomington's board of zoning appeals (BZA), which has granted a variance that allows for the adaptive reuse project to exceed the height that would ordinarily be allowed.

The existing building will be preserved as a part of the project.

Project architect Tim Cover, with Studio 3 Design, told the board that the existing bank building walls would not support additional construction on top of them. Cover said that means a kind of skeleton structure has to be built through the existing building.

More below:
https://bsquarebulletin.com/2023/12/26/boutique-hotel-above-former-peoples-bank-on-kirkwood-okd-for-height/