City edges closer to buying downtown property from IU

The city of Bloomington is getting closer to approving a $13.7 million project to purchase and redevelop a downtown neighborhood.  

The city’s Department of Economic and Sustainable Development has proposed purchasing slightly more than 12 acres of downtown property currently owned by IU. The area currently houses the Indiana University Press and other buildings originally intended to be used as a university research center.

The property is located near the intersection of 11th and Morton Streets.

The project will be developed to accommodate downtown employees, Danise Alano-Martin, director of the Dept. of Economic and Sustainable Development, said in a phone interview.

“We’d like to see that property redeveloped in a mixed-use way,” Alano-Martin said. This shouldn’t include just usual office space, she said, but also high-tech business offices, restaurants, retail, affordable housing, senior housing, workforce housing – for people who want to live and work in the same place – and greenspace.

Part of the project includes greenspace that could potentially be turned into a new city park, she said. The property runs immediately adjacent to the B-Line Trail and Alano-Martin said the master plan might include some additions and connections to the trail.

The redevelopment project will be financed with a $13.7 million bond from the city, with about $10 million of that going to purchase the property and about $3 million going to renovate the infrastructure.

Financing the project will not raise property taxes or create new tax rates, Alano-Martin said.

Funding will come from the Tax Increment Finance District the project is located in. “It will all be on revenue that’s generated already into the area or revenue that’s generated by this project itself,” she said.

The city does not intend to retain ownership of the property in the long term. Instead, the city plans to sell the property to a developer who shares the city’s vision for it.

“We want to improve the infrastructure. We want to ready the properties for sale into the private sector so the private sector can redevelop the properties along that vision,” Alano-Martin said.

The goal of owning the property and then reselling to a private company ensures that the city has more control over what happens there in the future.

“I think it puts us in a better position to make sure that development happens that would be of the best benefit to the community,” she said.

The project will also include investments in green infrastructure and sustainable development. Alano-Martin would like to use the project to become a model for other cities.

“We really want this redevelopment to be kind of a signature project for Bloomington. We want other communities to look at this project … and say, you know, this was something that was done the right way.”