Monroe County Convention Center to expand in downtown area

Considering Little 500, the Lotus World Music & Arts Festival and the Fourth Street Festival, Bloomington attracts an ever changing array of authors, artists and musicians.

However, finding a hotel near downtown is a challenge.

“If you compare downtown Indy 30 years ago to what it looks like today, it’s a completely different story,” President of the Monroe County Convention and Visitors Commission Thom Simmons said. “It’s a vibrant city, and they are our model.”

Downtown Bloomington is limited with its capacity to hold tourists, and this causes a problem for travelers to find a place to stay.

Bloomington tourists will have a great burden lifted off their shoulders because of the new chunk of land that the Monroe County Convention Center has purchased.

Three acres on two different patches of land were recently purchased from local businesses for $5.5 million by the Monroe County Convention Center Building Corporation.

“Part of the focus is to keep Bloomington’s historical preservation,” Simmons said. “We want to develop a way to bring people downtown in a residential sort of way.”

The first parcel of land is located south of the Monroe County Convention Center, between Second and Third streets on the west side of College Avenue.

The second lot is in between College and Walnut avenues.

Simmons described Indianapolis attractions such as Conseco Fieldhouse, Indianapolis’s Convention Center, Lucas Oil Stadium and Victory Field as successful tourist spots because they have ample amounts of hotels for their travellers to spend the night.

He wants Bloomington’s attractions to have the same.

One of the biggest challenges to the Monroe County Convention Center is drawing conventions to downtown Bloomington because of the limited hotel space.

Downtown Bloomington’s main hotel, The Courtyard Marriott, is not a full-service hotel that offers enough space to allow large conventions to take place.

The Indiana Rural Water Association has been a customer for years, and because it continues to grow, it has outgrown the space, said Executive Director of the Monroe County Convention Center Talisha Coppock.

The Monroe County Convention Center had been planning to purchase additional land downtown for several years.

A premonition of bad news was to follow if no plans took place.

“If we hadn’t been able to purchase the land in order to expand the Convention Center, we would have had to move to the outskirts of Bloomington,” Chairman of the Monroe County Convention Center Lee Marchant said. “We needed more hotel space.”

One of the available parcels of land became available when a local business owner decided he was ready to sell his property. The other was a result of foreclosure.

“Two great things came together at one time,” Simmons said. “No business owners were interested in selling before, and we were in the right position to buy the land.”

Tenants and business owners occupying the two lots have come to agreement with the Monroe County Convention Center that they will remain on the property until their leases end.

Some of the current tenants on the property are Napa Auto Parts, Furniture Exchange, Warehouse Antiques, Second Street Antique Mall, Sole Sensations, Hoosier Cross Fit and Executive Detail.

“The lease for Napa is not up until 2018 so the process of expanding could take five to 15 years,” Coppock said.

The master planning process for the full-service hotel and the expansion of the Convention Center will take place in early 2011.

“With the expansion there will be a lot more of exhibit space, meeting rooms, a full-service hotel and will boost economic development for downtown Bloomington with coming to shop and eat,” Marchant said.

The full-service hotel will also open a plethora of job opportunities for the city of Bloomington.

“It’ll be an economic driver for Bloomington,” Simmons said. “The full-service hotel could create somewhere in the range of 200 to 250 jobs.”

Owner of Furniture Exchange Steve Birch said he is content with having to move his business after his lease is up.

“I think it’s going to be great when they expand the Convention Center because downtown businesses will prosper,” Birch said. “We’ll just have to advertise to customers where we’re going.”