Council weighs costs of redeveloping Thomson site

Members of the Bloomington City Council wanted to learn a little more about the financing of what used to be the Thomson site. After the meeting had concluded, they still wanted more.\nThomson closed its facilities in 1998, leaving 1,200 people without jobs and more than 1.7 million square feet of industrial space. Now plans are being made to determine what will be done with the site.\n"The issue we're dealing with is how to make the best use of the site and its buildings while conforming with extraordinarily high predevelopment costs for any major reuse effort," said Nathan Hadley, executive assistant for economic development. \nAlso at issue is the demolition of Building One, which Hadley said is "one of the largest barriers to redevelopment." The Bloomington Redevelopment Commission provided funds for the demolition, which totaled $909,000. \nThose funds were provided through Tax Increment Funding (TIF) through the state, and Hadley said this proposal would pay back those debts through CREED funds, which are intended to spur redevelopment.\n"The way the TIF statute is written, you can use TIF funds in or serving that area and that covers just a much greater geographic range than the CREED alone does. So to preserve the maximal flexibility for use of that money, basically for the whole southwest side, we wanted to make sure we had that flexibility," said Assistant City Attorney Susan Failey, responding to a question from councilman David Sabbagh.\nCouncil member Jeffrey Willsey asked for a list of projects that all the funds are used for. \n"What I'd like to do at the next meeting is to run through the balances starting at next week's date, and run through the history of these transactions," said Willsey. "Let's start at the beginning of this project." \nCouncil member Andy Ruff questioned the public gain through the redevelopment process.\n"Making productive use of the site is an important goal for the community," he said. "At this point I can't really say how much the public is benefiting from, or is likely to benefit from, these public investments into the site."\nCouncil President Patricia Cole, as well as members Ruff, Willsey and Chris Gaal, passed on the preliminary vote. The council will meet July 11 to hear the information they requested and to take a final vote on the proposal.