Downtown property stirs controversy

The building that formally housed the ST Semiconductor factory sits on College Avenue, dilapidated and empty. \nBloomington city representatives tried Monday to transfer ownership of the property from its current owner, Bloomington Investment Group, to a city-selected firm. The city wanted the firm to redevelop the Semicon site. Monroe County Circuit Judge Douglas Bridges, however, ruled to keep the Semicon site under its current ownership.\nCity attorney Michael Flory said Bloomington Investment Group has neglected the property and ignored safety concerns within the property's building.\n"We think it's a continuing and ongoing unsafe situation," Flory said.\nFlory described instances of people breaking into the building to skateboard, loiter and vandalize the property -- all potential hazards since the building's interior contains open elevator shafts and chemical contamination.\nFlory said the redevelopment of the site is critical in accomplishing the goal of a stable downtown environment and explained the placement of the property to a city-chosen firm -- referred to as a receiver -- as the best option to accomplish that goal. \n"It's called a receiver," Flory said. "In this case it's like taking an abused child out of an abusive home."\nThe Indiana Department of Environmental Management has been supervising the development of the Semicon site since 1992. Chemicals were put in a dumpster causing a fire in a neighborhood off Grant Street, according to an IDEM correspondence to the property's previous owner, Retico, Inc.\nSince that time the Bloomington Investment Group has spent $450,000 cleaning up the property to IDEM's standards, and the clean up is more than 90 percent complete, according to a legal report.\n"We are continuing to work with the Bloomington Investment Group to meet the agreement on the original contract," IDEM spokesperson Courtney Kasinger said. "There are a lot of legal issues involved, and these things take a lot of time."\nFlory said the city's past experience has caused him to conclude the owners of the Semicon site are not self-motivated.\n"In our past experience there is only activity at the Semicon site when there is pressure," Flory said. "The second city pressure goes away, so does any remediation."\nBloomington Investment Group attorney, John Shean, needs more assistance from IDEM to accomplish the cities goals.\n"As soon as the Department of Environmental Management gets off their paperwork, the site will be cleaned up and sold," Shean said. "If you have an environmentally sensitive piece of property you dare not demolish it before you know it's free of environmental hazards."\nAlong with concerns from the city, Shean is concerned with the city attempting to take property from a legitimate property owner.\n"We get so used to the government doing whatever it wants to do," Shean said. "We forget about constitutional rights."\nIndiana State law states that "no person's property shall be taken by law without just compensation."\n"In medieval times, kings would take property from their citizens," Shean said. "I hope we don't go back to that."\nThe Bloomington Investment Group is looking to sell the block-long property to a Florida-based realtor who would build student housing on the site. The only issues delaying the sale of the property are pending approval from the city for further development and a letter from IDEM promising no additional requirements and action.\n"I know the city is disappointed," Shean said, "but I seriously think they over stepped on this one"