IU Foundation buys land housing Kilroy's

The land where popular downtown bar Kilroy's stands has a new owner: the IU Foundation. The Foundation acquired property on Kirkwood Avenue that includes Kilroy's by cashing in their option to buy the property, which they had been leasing for 15 years. The complete property they now own includes Kilroy's and a parking lot east of it, said Lynn Coyne, IU assistant vice president for Indiana University real estate. \nThe IU Foundation is a non-for-profit organization that utilizes private resources for IU.\nBarbara Coffman, director of communications for the IU Foundation said the nonprofit organization acquires land around town for the University, as opposed to the University having to deal directly with state. She said a reduced time frame and less paperwork requirements are advantages of using the IU Foundation.\n"Basically, the foundation acquires property two ways. It can receive property as a gift, or the University asks us to buy it," Coffman said. "But, if we ask the state (of Indiana) to lease or buy, it takes much longer. We'll buy a piece of property and lease it to IU and in this case, we had a lease for the (Kirkwood) property and we had to option to buy. The expired lease of 15 years was up at the first of the year -- so we took the option of buying."\nCoffman said Kilroy's extended its lease for another 2 1/2 years and no immediate changes will be made. Kilroy's continues to sublease the property as before, only under the conditions of different ownership.\n"There could be changes down the road related to Kilroy's," Coffman said. "There may be some, but that I don't know for sure."\nCoyne said plans for redeveloping the property in future years will be a main concern for the new owners.\n"Long term, there will be planning for redeveloping that is consistent with Kirkwood and Bloomington," Coyne said. "Bloomington is currently undergoing a downtown plan study."\nKilroy's General Manager Maggie Prall said the company has known about the changes for quite some time and does not think any foreseeable changes will occur in the meantime.\n"We've known for 20 years," Prall said. "As far as we know we'll remain the lessee until the building is gone; we don't foresee any changes in the immediate future."\n-- Contact Senior Writer Lindsay Jancek at lmjancek@indiana.edu