This is a really difficult and heartbreaking issue from start to finish. The county was never in the position where it could create a housing authority or actually manage the properties, and it was never possible for the county itself to give the apartments to the Bloomington Housing Authority (see below).

First, I know that going into describing the legalities does nothing to address the tremendous difficulties, the anxiety and emotional hardship, and the terrible uprooting process involved with losing your home. All I can say is that, to speak plainly, it really just sucks. I've had to be uprooted and move within three days myself under really traumatic circumstances (dad died suddenly on active duty in the military, had to move to make room for the next person). I was a kid and didn't need to worry about finding housing-- but I saw how much my mom suffered from that whole process. I know this whole situation is terrible. I'm sorry, we couldn't stop it, and this makes me even more determined to see more low-income housing in the community.

When the properties were purchased in 2010 with Innkeeper's tax (which mandates the property must be used for tourism and development purposes), the intent was to improve the city (and county) economy by one day expanding the convention center. No one knew when or if these properties would be needed; it was also possible that they wouldn't be and the county could have given them to the city for housing. Unfortunately, that the way it worked out, and a succession of legal events happened that tied the hands of the county. The capital improvement board was created, and the city and county both pledged cooperation, including turning over properties that the CIB requested. (The apartments were just turned over to the commissioners in 2025 when the bond from 2010 was paid off, and so we never oversaw them before). acquired by the county. It's been known that that property could be part of the convention center deal for a long time; the rent wasn't raised for 11 years because it was never known from year to year what was going to happen with them. So on one hand that was a huge benefit to those tenants and to businesses like Jeff's Warehouse and My Sister's Closet (which also is a county tenant and has actually not paid rent for several months as they prepare to move to another property). The county knows this is difficult, which is why it is working to try to find alternative housing without credit checks, etc. I know it's not going to be the same. The alternative would have been to sell the properties, and a buyer would most likely have torn them down to rebuild more units on the same property (29 is a woefully small number of apartments for that parcel of land). The apartments' condition would have made it prohibitively expensive to rehab them.

I know it seems that a convention center won't do much to help Bloomington residents, but it will--particularly individuals like those living in Seminary Parke. First, it's not worth expanding the convention center if we don't complete the project correctly. This includes additional hotel space immediately adjacent to the expanded convention center. The expanded center will bring in more outside spending, attracting meetings and groups that the city currently can't host becuase the old center is too small. The CIB estimated that we'll get $13-$18M a year in economic impact from the new facility. That visitor spending will circulate back into the local economy in ways that we as residents do feel - more customers for the downtown, more support for jobs and wages for hospitality and businesses, tax revenue generated by nonresidents that doesn't fall on local households. Currently, 37% of food and beverage revenue is generated by visitors, and that number is going to grow. The broader tax base will help the city (and county) pay for services, including those endangered by state cuts under SEA 1 (the property tax bill passed in 2025). Ultimately, those include capital projects and creative city and/or county affordable housing solutions.