Arts-themed hotel to be built in Bloomington

In an effort to revitalize the southern part of downtown Bloomington, a local developer announced plans this week to build an arts-themed hotel at College Avenue and Third Street. \nThe $17 million Hotel Indigo and an art gallery in development by John Mellencamp are part of an effort by city leaders to attract new development to the area and establish it as a destination spot for visitors. Assuming the hotel plans are approved by the Bloomington Plan Commission at a meeting Dec. 10, construction will begin in spring 2008, hotel developer Peter Dvorak said. \n“So far, all the feedback has been positive,” said Dvorak, a partner in Downtown Redevelopment Partners, a group of local investors who own the 1.3-acre property. “We tried to work with everybody and take suggestions into account over the years ... And we’re confident that we’ll move forward.”\nRight now, the area where the hotel will be built is “not the prettiest part of town,” Bloomington resident and IU student Jon Hiskes said. Currently, K’s Karate Center and Goodyear Tire Center, both abandoned, stand on the site.\nBut Hotel Indigo will begin to change that, said Miah Michaelsen, Bloomington’s assistant economic development director for the arts. \nShe said future projects planned in the area will receive a boost by planned hotel. \n“This hotel makes those developers feel better ... It will help move those projects from pending status to lets-go status,” she said. \nHotel Indigo, which will be built across the street from Bloomington and Monroe County Convention Center, will lie in the designated Bloomington Entertainment and Arts District. The district is part of a city campaign launched in 2006 to promote downtown businesses.\n“The more we do to focus energy in this area, the more potential population we will have coming downtown,” Michaelsen said. “This hotel fits nicely into that concept.”\nDvorak said the hotel will be unlike any other in Bloomington. \n“It gives Bloomington an alternative to traditional, beige-box hotel rooms ... We wanted to build something offbeat and eclectic,” Dvorak said. “That’s something we don’t currently have in this city.” \nPart of the plan to personalize the hotel includes incorporating local art in the interior design, he said. Local photographers will see their work featured on a five-story exterior canvas on the building’s facade. \nDvorak said the hotel’s decorations will change with each season, but its permanent design concept will be centered around the Golden Ratio, or Phi, a mathematical constant that appears in nature, most notably on the patterns of sea shells. \n“It’s part of our desire to bring the outdoors inside,” Dvorak said.\nThe hotel is expected to open in spring 2009, Dvorak said. The building will top 65 feet in height with five floors and 105 rooms. Room rates will start at $120 a night.\nThe idea of building a hotel on the plot has been in the works for a few years, said Talisha Coppock, executive director of Downtown Bloomington, Inc. \nMichaelsen said Hotel Indigo will help feed the downtown area’s need for more hotel rooms, especially when the convention center is eventually expanded, although Coppock said those particular plans on the back burner at the moment.\n“Many weeks and weekends we are booked solid downtown,” she said. “More rooms will help now and in the future ... when the convention center is expanded.”\nHotel Indigo is a brand offered by InterContinental Hotels, which owns more hotel rooms than any other company in the world, Dvorak said. There are currently 10 other Hotel Indigos in operation in the United States, with 60 more planned for the future.