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It’s your business: Hopewell, Trades District, convention center all part of puzzle

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3 months ago

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It’s your business: Hopewell, Trades District, convention center all part of puzzle

Jane Kupersmith
 |  Special to the H-T

Looking toward the upcoming budget hearings, where Mayor Kerry Thomson and her team have the opportunity to present their year-long goals and related funding requests to the Bloomington City Council, it occurred to me the connections I see across our work and community might not be apparent to others. Specifically, I’ve heard questions about the viability of the convention center and the Trades District as economic development strategies.

In a nutshell — they aren’t viable. At least not by themselves. But these initiatives, when viewed alongside all our other work, represent critical steps toward stabilizing and growing our overall economy. It’s essential to recognize these efforts as part of a larger, integrated plan.Why do we need a strong economy?

In short, if we’re doing it right, it means it’s easier for you, the resident, to live, work, and play here. If our economy is robust you have the ability to live in Bloomington without wondering whether your paycheck is going to clear before your rent is due. And with a robust economic foundation, we, the City, have the tax revenue needed to support transit, parks, public art, climate action, shelters and services for unhoused folks, maintenance of our public spaces, and police, among many others. The mayor’s vision for Bloomington is that of a thriving, inclusive, and sustainable community, with the opportunity for prosperity for all residents.

Living in Bloomington can present challenges, particularly with its low wages, high cost of living, and high income inequality. For example, Bloomington’s Gini Coefficient of .53 represents “severe” income inequality. Bloomington does not have the highest coefficient in the state, but when coupled with our high cost of living and dearth of available housing, our community quickly becomes less competitive as a place to live. Bloomington’s home ownership rate, for example, is 35% compared to the state average of 70%. And as anyone who lives here knows, this is not because Bloomingtonians don’t want to own their homes. These challenges have been made visible in our gradual population decline since a brief rebound after a major 2020 pandemic dip.

But back to the Convention Center, the Trades District, and Hopewell — each of these projects tackles one of our critical economic constraints. Hopewell will chip away at the overall lack of housing by creating up to 850 units of “dense, urban form” that will be walkable to downtown and located on Bloomington Transit’s East-West Bus Rapid Transit Line. Hopewell is beginning to take shape with construction of Kohr Community Flats to begin later this year; Hopewell Commons to be open to the public this fall; the call for developers on Hopewell South (the area closest to McDoel Gardens) going out within the next month, and feedback received on proposals for Hopewell Commons public art. Hopewell will add nearly 800 houses, townhomes, condos, and apartments, and this increase in housing stock will drive down the overall cost of housing in Bloomington and help reduce housing insecurity.

Sector development refers to a community’s ability to have multiple baskets of economic eggs (Sorry, farming metaphors work better for me than hoops). Bloomington has some really large baskets — like higher education and life sciences manufacturing. Diversification of baskets makes our economy more resilient to macroeconomic pressures (like a pandemic, for example). The work that is being done to drive development at the Trades District, with two buildings coming online this fall, the Kiln and the Forge, and a new grant to accelerate development through partnerships with IU, the Mill, and the City, our community is making incredible strides to expand the tech sector in Bloomington. Through Bloomington Remote, the Mill is working to grow our local talent by attracting remote workers to Bloomington. And they’re building an incredible community as they do it.

Development of the Convention Center represents another economic basket that makes a couple of critical moves. First, it helps insulate Bloomington from slow times when IU is not in session and second, it brings in outside dollars to support our local service sector businesses. That is, the convention center acts more like a traded sector business — a business that sells its goods and services outside the community. The market size of the convention center isn’t constrained by our population, and our residents are not responsible for generating the revenue to drive its activity. Instead, Bloomington businesses will benefit from these off-cycle (and on-cycle) visitors to our town. In fact, we all will. It will contribute to the overall feeling of vibrancy in our downtown and beyond.

More: Monroe Convention Center expansion moves forward with site, architect selection

As you can see, there isn’t a single solution that addresses all aspects of these issues. Instead, we work to remove constraints to growth as we build upon our incredible assets, like our walkable downtown, IU’s incredible campus and its community, our many wonderful restaurants, coffee shops, breweries, food trucks, college sports, Monroe County’s great natural beauty, mountain biking opportunities, road biking opportunities, Little 5, our many art galleries, the largest lake in Indiana, our Hoosier hospitality, our farmers markets, our community orchard, the Hub, our quarries, our dog parks, our skate parks, our neighborhood parks, Cascades, Switchyard, the B-Line, our incredible schools and educators, our many opportunities for pickleball, Western Skateland, QueerTonk, the Back Door, Fourth Street, Limestone Comedy, our performing arts opportunities, our glass studio, our public art, our locally owned hardware stores and donut shops, and of course, all of our other super fun year-round events.

With empathy and determination, our combined efforts will help make certain Bloomington remains a dynamic and resilient community.

Jane Kupersmith is director of economic and sustainable development for the City of Bloomington.

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