So we're all here because we want to say Seminary Point. You all heard the call and you answered it.
A little bit about us before we begin. My name is Bryce Green. I'm an organizer with Democratic Social
South America. I've been organizing for about eight years. And I'm also a graduate student, a graduate
union organizer at Indiana University. I'll pass this off to Sarah.
Hello, I'm Sarah St. John Wolbert and I am the Housing Solutions Director at Habitat for Humanity. I
bring over a decade of construction experience to this project and I am honored to be presenting to
you today as a Bloomington Homes for All volunteer. My name is Matthew Joseph. I'm a resident of Bloomington
and a member of Bloomington Homes for All. I'm currently a therapist at Centerstone.
But my previous life was in entrepreneurship and business. I got a degree from Kelly and ran a few of
my own businesses over the last decade. So it's very heartening to see so many people here to show up,
you know, municipal policy meeting. But I mean, that's kind of one of the reasons why I've stuck around
in Wilmington. The community is excellent. They're engaged. And there's always some people doing something
to try and make it a little bit better.
So give yourselves a round of applause. That's the first step. OK, so a little bit about how
this presentation is going to go. We're going to be talking about Seminary Point, property, what makes
it important, and how it relates to preserving old blooming, this cultural feeling that you all know
and love, and how it relates to the housing and commercial crises that we're facing right now, we all
know about them, and how our plan will mitigate and address these crises.
And the solution that we hope to talk to you about is about a cooperative nonprofit model. We'll be
talking a bit about that. And of course, deconstruction and financials, proving that we have done the
due diligence to make sure this project is feasible and the numbers work. And then we'll be wrapping
up our vision and the next steps that the decision makers and policymakers can take to make sure that
we can save seminary pointing. All right.
So who are we? Who are we? We are Bloomington Homes for All. We're a collection of advocates in Bloomington,
Indiana. We are Bloomington Homes for All. We are all volunteers here. And we've tapped in with a national
network, the National Homes for All group. They're all dedicated to supporting policies and supporting
advocates who are pushing for affordable housing.
not only taking our local expertise, but we're also getting this national expertise to put together
to make this thing happen. And on the local level, we built a, quite the coalition of groups, Avalon
Community Land Trust, and we're gonna talk a bit more about how they fit into all this. Bloomington
Cooperative Living, some people live there, some people in this room live there, including myself. NASCO
Properties, which is the North American Students of Cooperation, they're a properties division,
They have, we've been in contact with them and have been getting some support on that front. And then
Democratic Socialist of America, a local activist group that's pushing for making housing a human right.
And the policies necessary to realize that right. And so we do quite the coalition. And the team on
the ground has been working on this. It's about 20 people who have been meeting multiple times a week
to talk about these issues about significant points, to talk through the politics, to talk through the policy
And they're together, they kind of form a mosaic of experience, construction experience, business experience,
finance experience, government experience, you know, organizing experience. And there's a great group
of people. And honestly, if you have done anything to help with Bloomington Homes for All, if you want
to, please raise your hand. Yeah. All right.
Give yourselves a round of applause. So what is Seminary Point? Seminary Point is that property just
north of the downtown Kroger at the corner of Second and College. It's home to four buildings. Two of
them are mixed use developments. One of them is fully residential and one of them is fully commercial.
And it's also near the Hopewell development. It's Caddy Corner.
to this new affordable housing development that's going up there. So if our plan actually complements
this other plan that's been going on. And it's also a critical piece of real estate. Not only is it
downtown, but it sits actually on the B line. And so it's part of a critical, one of the most nice trails
in Wilmington, one of the critical walkways and pedestrian traffic centers. So it's a really important
hub of real estate.
And the commercial spaces include My Sister's Closet, Blue Tip, Friendly Beast, Jess Warehouse, and
formerly Artisan Alley. I mean, how many of you guys have been to these businesses, right? Like, there's
almost everybody. It really underscores why it's so important to save. But a lot of people don't know
that this facility also includes 29 units of super affordable housing.
And when we say super affordable, we mean it. I mean, the rents there are between $400 and $700 a month.
I challenge you to find it if you're remotely close to that downtown in that location, or really anywhere
in Wilmington. But right now, there are 17 current residents, including the commercial tenants. And
the leases are set to be ended on August 31. Now, originally, these leases were set to end on July 7.
The whole fraud group has been working. We've been pushing. We've been advocating. And after months
of work, the leases were extended to August 31. So that's a very positive development. So yeah, I mean,
these buildings are really nice. It's also the location where we had the block party. I'm going to keep
asking people to raise their hands. How many people were at the block party? Yeah? It was a good time.
It was a good time. And we raised. We smashed our fundraising goal, which was excellent. So thank you
all for your help.
We also have the full residential building with eight units. Now, unfortunately, we looked at the,
you know, the structural assessments of these and talked to contractors, and this is the only building
that is not salvageable in the long term. There's been a lot of talk about, oh, seminary, why are you
saving seminary coin? These building, this building, people think of it as one building. You know, it's
not even structurally sound.
But three out of the four buildings are, and there's only one that is not. We'll be talking more about
that in the construction section. And yeah, then there's My Sister's Closet. This venue has been serving
Bloomington women for quite a bit of time. And then there's Jess Warehouse. Get a picture of Jess. Yeah,
Jess Warehouse, Blue Tip, and also has six residential units here.
So this is a pretty important part. And as we can see in the room, a lot of you guys have enjoyed these
businesses and services and agree that they would have disappeared. So what's the situation with Seminary
Point? Right now, Seminary Point is owned by something called the Capital Improvement Board, the CIB.
The CIB is an intergovernmental body made up of county appointees and city appointees. But they have
one job, and it's to develop the convention center.
a big convention center that's going up right down the street, and associated projects with it. They
own Seminary Point because they want to build what's called a host hotel, a hotel that will be mostly
linked to the operations and function of the convention center so that people can book whole blocks
of places. They need a hotel to make the convention center work. But they all seem to agree that the
best spot for a hotel is actually this other place.
College Square. I mean, you guys know where College Square is. It's right across the street from the
Atlas Bar. It's right at the corner of 4th and College. And so this building is, this property is actually
vacant. There's no one who uses this building. And it's just a big parking lot. And the parking lot
is only being used right now for staging for the convention center. So the CIB members, the
Most of the city planners, they agree that this would be the ideal location for a host hotel, which
raises the question, why are they building it at Seminary Point? Well, currently, the elsewhere is owned
by the city's redevelopment commission, the RDC. This body's made up of three mayoral appointees and
two city council appointees, and they manage the city's inventory of properties for the purpose of directing
and having a steady hand
over Bloomington's development pad. So they can make deals with developers who want to use these properties
for the betterment of Bloomington. But they own College Square. So why have there been some sort of
repealment? That's a long question. There's actually a very long history of this. A seminary point was
actually purchased by the county back in 2010.
when I was 12 years old. Yeah, and it's been held for 15 years. It was held by the Commission Center
Development Corporation. One of the reasons that this area has been able to stay affordable is that
it was taken out of this private landlord market, and it was actually run by a state body. And they
deferred maintenance because they felt like they were going to be destroying it any day now for 15 years.
But all this meant that there was little upward pressure on the race. And so it was kind of about the
accidental socialism on the calendar. We need more intentional. So that was the state of affairs for
quite some time. The Capital Improvement Board, the CIV, you might be overwhelmed with the acronyms
here. There are quite a few.
but hopefully this slide will help guide you. But the CID has been asking the RDC to swap that land
for a while, but the RDC has refused because of concerns about the relative values of these properties.
The College Square property is appraised at a higher value, was purchased at a higher cost than the
cost that was used to purchase the Seminary Point property. And so city officials were concerned that
by swapping properties of such different values, it would actually be a major subsidy to the Good Vision
Center outside of the food and beverage tax that was designed to service the Good Vision Center. Which
is a totally understandable state of affairs, totally understandable position. But I think many of you
guys have seen over the last few months, just a few weeks ago, the city council actually voted unanimously
to support a letter to the RBC saying that they
have less concern about the subsidy if that was going to be used for affordable housing. And recently,
actually, the mayor came out. This was actually a few days ago. We were very excited to see this. Mayor
Perry Thompson came out and said that she was interested in finding a way to support or to save St.
Mary Point and preserve it as affordable housing. So these are all extremely positive developments.
One of the holdups
is that the CID believes that given all the negotiations that were rejected in the past, that the burden
is no longer on them to submit a response to the RDC's proposal for College Square. And that's their
position. And the RDC has said, well, the only way that you're going to get this property is if you
go to the proposal. So there's kind of a stalemate there. So Wilmington Homes for All is proposing a
solution that
It kind of meets these two groups' interests where they intersect. We're proposing that the CIB actually
does submit a proposal to the RDC. But it's not at that $7 million price point that they had. It's a
sale or a proposal to receive College Square at a nominal fee on the condition that the CIB transfer
seminary points into a nonprofit cooperative tasked with preserving the long-term affordability of the property.
And then we hope that the RDC accept this proposal. And we actually have found a community developer,
a community land trust that is willing to receive the property if this plan goes through, the Avalon
Community Land Trust, ACLT. And so this is what we're proposing, you know. It's basically a land swap
minus some steps, maybe a little bit more. It's essentially a land swap.
So these are all the key stakeholders that are in this, and hopefully this will help, you know, relieve
you of the anxiety and have to keep track of all of these different sorts of community bodies,
city bodies, and their abbreviations. But that's what we're proposing. So without a solution, we might
end up in a situation where there are actually two hotels developed. Someone buys a college square to
develop a hotel, and someone also gets seminary point to develop a hotel.
In any case, the businesses, the tenants, the community spaces there, that would be a lottery. No more
friendly beasts, no more units of affordable housing, no more of that, just a hotel. And I think that
many of us in this room and many policy makers agree that this is less than the ideal outcome that we
want. So I'm going to pass it off to Sarah to talk a little bit about why seminary point is so important.
Thank you, Bryce.
So why should our community care? I'm a lifelong resident born and raised here in Wilmington. Saving
Seminary Point, as Bryce mentioned, keeps the community space thriving. It is a block away from Hopewell
where 35 affordable units are going in. If we demolish 29 units of affordable housing less than a block
away from that, what have we really gained as a community?
The hotel should go on the land that is currently a vacant building and a parking lot. It's closer to
the convention center and Seminary Point can then continue to be affordable housing, commercial, and
community space. I want to take a minute to acknowledge the inspiring history that Wilmington has of
saving and preserving spaces. McDowell Gardens' neighborhood was going to be torn down for hospital
expansion. The courthouse was going to be demolished until Charlotte Zetlow and other organizers saved
it. The Busker Chumley and the John Waldron's Art Center required extensive repairs in order to become
the gems they are today. We are honored to be taking up the mantle to preserve
this generation's first preservation project, Seminary Point. There is a certain charm that has been
eroding in Bloomington. It is especially evident in this area. We have lost the players' pub and rhinos,
and although the chocolate mousse is still there, the character of the building has lost some of its
charm by being converted into one of these large box buildings.
interested in bringing spaces like Rhinos back. We don't want Seminary Point to fall victim to the same
outcome as the Players Hub and Rhinos. I want to briefly zoom out and talk about some of the larger
trends that are affecting Wilmington. If you have recently tried to find a place to rent or a home to purchase,
then you understand and don't need to be lectured that we are in an affordability crisis. The average
rent for a one-bedroom in Bloomington is $1,100 a month. That is $400 more a month than what we plan
to charge at Seminary Point. In our research, we have found that the most affordable housing is cooperative housing.
In red, you see the median rent of a one-bedroom in the United States. And in blue, you see Bloomington
Community Living's Middle Earth rent space, or rent price. There has also been a drastic increase in
commercial rent. It has especially increased in the last five years.
Businesses are leaving and having to close because of these increased costs and poor property management.
Beloved spaces like the Trojan horse and orbit room and fat dance and cup and kettle are leaving. And
we don't want to add blue tip and friendly beasts and Jeff's warehouse to that list. We are part of
future community leaders in Bloomington.
Our town's population is decreasing, especially among the 25 to 50 year old range. Our group is predominantly
made up of this vanishing demographic that is vital to the cultural and economic success of Bloomington.
When people can't afford to live here, they can't afford to work here. And that affects our tax base.
This isn't just about housing. It is about economic development and sustainability. For those who read
the Herald Times, this is the issue that John Fernandez has been writing about. We aren't just young
people complaining about the hurdles we see. We are working hard to find solutions.
My parents bought a house in Bryant Park neighborhood in the 1990s for $32,000. Does anyone know what
$32,000 is equivalent to today? Your threat. Accounting for inflation is $81,000. Does anyone know of
a decent house in good condition?
That's for sale for $81,000. If you do, please talk to me after the presentation. Last year, a block
away from that house, a single lot sold for $105,000. That is a vacant, empty lot without any home on
it. Single-family homes are no longer attainable for my generation.
I appreciate that for the majority of decision makers, our group is made up of people around the ages
of your children. I encourage you, though, to look at us as your former selves. Gary Thompson was in
her late 20s when she became CEO of Habitat. Jane St. John was in her 20s when she implemented citywide
recycling. John Fernandez became mayor when he was 35.
If you have questions about our experience, ask us and help support us. We want to work with you and
learn from your experience. So please don't cut us out. Are you willing to collaborate with the next
generation of community leaders? Now that we've talked about the inspiring past, I'm gonna hand it over
to Matthew to talk about the future.
There's real problems that we're talking about. And again, just really appreciate everyone being here
for this. So when we think about the future of Seminary Point, we envision a cooperative model being
at the base of this. OK, so there's a few key terms here that I want to talk about. The first one is
a community land trust. There's two right now in Bloomington. So for example, it's Summit Hill and then
Avalon Community Land Trust, which is the one that we mentioned. We already have a partnership.
So community land trust is an ownership model where the owner of the land is a non-profit trust. So
what this looks like is, in the case of what Sarah's family had mentioned, is that if you were to have
a house 20 years ago, that would have been considered affordable. And you look at how the value of that
property increases, or has increased over the last 20 years, let's say,
that same exact house would be unaffordable to the people that bought it in the first place. So something
that was affordable, people are now getting priced out because of how market dynamics work and speculation
works with increasing of the land value over so much time that people are priced out of the things that
were originally affordable. And so community land trusts ensure that the ownership of the land
and that the values of it retain affordable over generations to come. So we can't just talk
about affordability in terms of today's standards, because speculation will pull us out of that. Models
like this keep us keeping affordability for a very long time. For example, there's one in Athens, Georgia,
which is an incredibly successful model. One that's just to show you that this is not just happening
in beautiful Bloomington. This is happening
all across the country, and then we're not also the first ones to do this. Incredibly successful land
trust, so much here, and they've been able to not only create new jobs in their community and retain
the nature and the preservation of their ecology on this land, but also maintaining the affordable housing
on that land that they are creating, like I said, for generations to come. Okay.
So the other piece there, so we talked about land trust. That is the owner of the land that, let's say
for example, we'll send my point, is on. Now on top of that, we believe that there should be a cooperative.
Okay, what's a cooperative? It is an organizational structure that is governed and owned by the members
that make it up. Okay, who's heard of a cooperative? Amazing, thank you. Thank you for knowing,
this is good, this is great.
Not to over explain, but there's three key pieces here. Democratic decision making. Each member has
a vote for the housing that they're in. Or whatever the co-op might be, which I'll explain. Also community
reinvestment. So the money that is put into it, maybe for rent prices, et cetera, is put back into the
non-profit and not necessarily in the hands of typically wealthier investors. So it puts the money into
the hands of the community, into the people,
that make up that land. And so we're able to prioritize the needs of those people because they're also
the ones that are voting for the decisions in the first place. So the decision makers are the ones that
are affected by the decisions that they make. And so it creates a beautiful incentive. I'm just gonna
skip and go to that really quickly. There's two part incentive to a cooperative, right? To keep it affordable
because you yourself are a member of that cooperative.
And then the other side, it's to also keep it beautiful and well maintained. Because you live there,
you have a commercial business there, and you're an owner of it. You feel like you own the thing. Because
decisions are made by the very people affected by those decisions. I'll come back to that slide. I'm
just having a good time. And I want to tell if I could, I don't want to take too much time. A lot of
y'all know what a co-op group is. Actually, I'll tell this when I get to the VC office. That's a personal story.
But, so, oh, we're here. I wish they were coming. Okay, so, Bloomington Cooperative Blooming is the
most successful form of super affordable housing in Bloomington. I pay, in Trellis on next year, right
across from the community garden, big, beautiful house, I pay $399 a month for rent.
Give me that. I didn't do much. One member. One member. Give me only one. OK. So this did not just show
up for me in a time that I needed, which right now I'm in grad school for mental health counseling,
currently getting paid minimum wage as a therapy intern. So I need this to live and serve the people
most vulnerable in Bloomington. But this came at a time for me.
When, so about two years ago, I was in a granite apartment. You guys know granite apartment? The apartment
complex. Well, you know, they're here. I'm the co-ops people. So I lived in granite. I was paying about,
you know, probably $7.50 a month at the time. Not bad, I could do that. And that was right at the time
in my life where I was just graduating from college.
and I was entering into that abyss time after you leave college and you're trying to find community,
and I was also starting a business in Bloomington at the exact same time. I was an entrepreneur at the
time. And that is, think about this, okay? So, and when I got my lease for the next year, it was $200
more than what I had paid that year. I was priced out of my own apartment that I lived in.
And so I looked everywhere else, I couldn't find a place to live. And so for an entire year, I was just
bouncing around on three month subleases somewhere under the table. Like literally just to afford to
live here. And that was at a time, so this is what I say, is the most unstable time in my entire life.
Mentally, emotionally, and to also be thinking about running a business.
You know, that's already such an unstable thing as well. To not have the housing is a really important
piece. I need that stability. And at the end of that year, I found out about limited cooperative living
from a good friend of mine. And that was what enabled me to be able to afford to live here, as well
as be able to confidently say to you all that limited cooperative living and the cooperative model changed
my life in ways I cannot describe. Gave me a community to be around.
I don't mean to just say it in tough stories, but my whole family, oh God. My whole family, I went to
Kelly, you think I should know how to do this. I went to Kelly, sorry, I went to Kelly. My whole family
is from Syria in the Middle East, okay? When I hear stories of my mom living in Beishpat in Syria, she
lived in a cooperative living arrangement.
And the situation was it was a small little building that her, her aunts, her uncles, her grandparents
all lived in this little area. She never felt alone. That year, when I was bouncing around places, I
have never felt more alone in my entire life. And so when I found a community where I could wake up
and I hear the footsteps of my roommates, I loved that.
It's my genes, this is who I am. This is like, you wanna bring more diversity to Bloomington, you gotta
make it happen. That's community. This is other countries think about things in this way, especially
not in the West. And so this gave me the opportunity to do that. And so I'm gonna stop on BCL,
I love them. I mean, decisions made, weekly, et cetera, I feel so a part of this thing. And honestly,
the last thing I'll say is I didn't care about politics before I lived here.
Because I only could think individualistically. I could only think about making my own life. And the
second that somebody asked me, hey, Matthew, walk around the house and find projects to work on.
Get outside, dude. I was like, you're asking me to get involved in the land that I live in? With my
genes like that? You think that'd be natural? This is creating, this model doesn't just create cool
housing and affordable housing. It does that incredibly well. But it also creates collectivists.
It creates people who are thinking communally about their world and want to push this forward into the
world. No more on that. There's more models, okay? Common Grounds is one, I'll relate that here. So
there's a multi-stakeholder cooperative where the commercial businesses, the residential tenants, and
community members all as stakeholders in this model.
And this is incredible. They built local jobs, they built community spaces, they built commercial businesses
and non-profits all in one building. So, the Centerpoint Cooperative, right, all that passion that y'all
got, okay, putting into the Centerpoint Co-op. So, we want to model this off of the common grounds model.
Multi-stakeholder, because that is already what it is. Okay, we're building cooperative with what already
exists on it.
So we'll have key stakeholders, the commercial tenants, the residential tenants, and community members.
You can imagine similar to the bee foods for the community members, where you can actually get engaged
on an ownership level with the people that you're buying from or the people, the cousins that you know
that live there, et cetera. And then a board of directors that's elected by the stakeholders themselves.
So again, I talked about a lot of this, but it really, to focus here, it ensures the stability of the
affordability of the land, right? So that people like me, the business owners, don't have to be worried
about what their rent next year is gonna look like. So that the residential tenants don't have to worry
about what their rent is gonna look like. So maintaining that stability is a part of it. And
then responsibility. Because when you, like I said, when you take ownership, it becomes yours.
and you get to envision what the whole thing's gonna look like. I never for a second thought about what
Greenwich Apartments is gonna look like in Wilmington. But now, look at me, this is crazy.
I get to envision, this is the youth that said what was talking about, I get to envision what this whole
city could look like, and in a small way what Seven-Eight Point could look like, because this form of
living has encouraged me to think in that way. So, who actually owned the land?
Outlaw Community Land Trust, we talked about that. They're already doing this in limited and doing it
really well. We want to just continue with that thread. And then Cooler Management Land is a seven-way
point cooperative with our confirmed development partner, Nazco Properties, who has been doing this
exact same thing across the entire country for the last 40 years, building co-ops in different forms
and models of co-ops. And I think with their partnership,
we can make this very successful. So our team, we talk about a lot of this, we have construction experience
on the team. We have financial business experience on the team. Look at that pro forma. It's good, it's
even good. The cooperation team, which has years of co-op experience, and then community outreach team.
I mean, in terms of our consultants, we have lenders as consultants. We have people that are actively
engaged in the nonprofit space that have had decades of living here and willing to understand the dynamics.
of people that have a co-op experience for decades, decades building co-ops that we see in Bloomington,
an inspired community engagement like this. And then people have heard about this across the country.
We had a person that said, I want to fly out and come see Seminary Point to see what's going on, because
we heard about what's happening. And it was like, oh, I'd love to be a consultant. It's like,
that's amazing. We have an opportunity to be an inspiration
with our consultants. And so I'll pass it back to Sarah. Thank you all. Thank you. All right. So I'm
going to talk a little bit more about myself, my favorite topic. So I bring over a decade of construction
experience to the Bloomington Seminary Point project.
I worked for Habitat for Humanity, and as I mentioned earlier, I'm the Housing Solutions Director. I've
been there for four years, three of which I was Construction Site Supervisor. And I actually recognize
some of you from Women Plus Build, so thank you all for being here. I also previously worked at Lauren
Wood Builders, and while I was there, I worked on the Bloomington Cohousing Neighborhood,
and the Hoosier Heights Climbing Gym, along with other projects. I studied construction at Ball State,
and so I'm going to talk a little bit more about our construction plan. This is our five-year plan,
and in year one, we're going to, it will start with Avalon Community Land Trust taking ownership of the land.
Immediate repairs on the exterior will start. We'll be repairing the roof, paving the parking lot, and
there will also be the improvements of the residential units, including things like new flooring, paint,
and that sort of thing. In year one, we'll also be hiring an architect to make plans for major renovations.
And then in year two, we will be applying for grants, securing loans,
and hiring local contractors. In year two, we'll also be demolishing 432 South College, which unfortunately
is not salvageable. I'll be getting back to that in just a moment though. In year three, we'll start
major renovations at 414 South College, which is where my sister's closet is.
422 South College, which is where Jeff's Warehouse and Blue Tip is located, and 222 West Second Street,
which is where Friendly Beasts and formerly Artisan Alley was. Those updates will include updates to
the electrical, the HVAC, the sewer, and also replacing windows. In year four, we will
We'll be finishing all of those major renovations and we'll start a feasibility study for a new housing
development at 432 South College. In year five, if deemed feasible, we'll start the construction project
at that location. Here's the exact scope and costs of everything that we have going on.
We've been talking to Tommy Dees for an estimate for the windows, commercial service for the HVAC, Cassidy
Electric for the electrical upgrades, and Kevin Potter who did an assessment in terms of the structural
integrity of the buildings. I'm now going to be passing it back to Matthew so that he can talk about
how we're going to plan to pay for this $1.6 million project.
Okay, so we have our operating budget. By the way, all of this has been reviewed by multiple lenders
and I've gotten a lot of incredible feedback throughout the process. So we killed creating this with
the same people that we went up on this. So let's talk about our gross income. So we're looking at 422K
a year. We include an assumption around vacancy loss. So assuming that some of the tenants
Some of the units won't be housed, and some of the commercial might need time, et cetera. So we can
bake that into the financials. Our residential price, with all you think, that with all the renovations
that are needed, that this would just become a totally unaffordable project, and the exact opposite
is true. We're able to keep rent prices at $700 a month, which serves 45% area median income, which
is somebody that is making $36,000 a year. This could be a whole new home.
for so many individuals in Bloomington that are often unserved. And then at commercial rent prices,
we're looking at eight to 10 square foot for each unit of the commercial, which is incredibly competitive
as well as the average commercial rent, sorry, square footage is about 16. So we create an incentive
for the commercial businesses that are going to be struggling to pay their rent to come find community
at Seminole Point.
Operating expenses, we've baked in working with property management. We've baked in part-time staff,
as well as for future projects that might need a little bit more on the outside of just the renovation
plan, having a whole reserve contributed just for that, which is great. And then, which gets us to an
income of about $244,000 a year. But when we include the debt service, we sit
a debt service coverage ratio of about 1.27. This is just a ratio that explains how well that you can
service the debt over an extended period of time. For most affordable housing plans, the financial gets
you to a debt service ratio of about 1.1 to 5, 1.2. So even in that, it gives us room and shows that
lenders would just love something like this. And so when we look at the use of the sources,
When it comes to that renovation plan that we talked about, that's the hard cost of construction. But
then we include the soft costs, the contingency, which, hey, second point, yes, there might be things
that we crack open that might be more helpful. And so we bake that in. Most projects have about 10%
contingency. We included 15% contingency, as well as pre-capital reserves and closing costs,
so about 2.1 million. And we balance that with the sources that we're already working with, four approved
clear mission-aligned lenders that we are already in conversation with, three of which, and the four
we just had asked, three of which have agreed to sign a letter of support to our mission to save Center
8 Point and to build a cooperative. And also has said that they've looked at the financials and they
want to continue working with us. And this is before we even have the land. The lenders are interested
in seeing the land.
So let's make this happen. So how do we do this? So this is even the breakdown. We're opening up the
books. This is amazing. CDFIs across the country. And with weighted averages, we see about a 6.6% interest
rate and a 21-year maturity, all of which we've gotten confirmed that this is relatively what the numbers
would look like. So this isn't speculative, et cetera. This is really talking along with themselves
on what it would look like. This is incredible.
The one thing that we didn't make in at all, because we want to just convince people that this was absolutely
possible. We didn't make in a single dollar of grant or free money into any of this. Which means, okay,
that the debt service coverage ratio is just the payoff loans to service the entire project. That would
go up even more if we got a fraction of this by grants or by crowdfunding, all of which we're starting
to engage in.
and look into more and starting conversations with the Community Foundation as well as other city grants
and getting inspired by a lot of other crowdfunding campaigns that are around Bloomington and around
the country. Bryce, take it away, my friend. Yeah, so just to wrap things up, we'll be ending soon,
but the vision for this
space that we're talking about. It's not just purely financial. It's not purely about the economic benefits
that can come from having this cooperative space and having it known as a non-profit. But it's also
about the community that can be created. We envision the space as a micro-neighborhood that has businesses
that service the people who live there, that service the communities that are around them,
and that is stable, and that is affordable, and that is developed by the people who live there.
I mean, there are so many opportunities for what this could be. You could have community programming
in the spaces that we use. We could have events like the Block Party over and over and over again. You
could have kids playing whatever frisbee in the yard. You could do anything. The sky is really the limit.
And it's all managed democratically, and it's all
consistently affordable. There's no speculation. There's no profit incentive that's making things wildly
unaffordable. This is the vision that we had. Sounds kind of good, doesn't it? This could become a new
way of doing co-op as in Bloomington. We talked a little bit about the current existing co-ops. We have
BeeFood. We have BCL. But this would sort of combine the two by making this a mixed-use development co-op.
Like I said, stable rents, sustainability. We didn't talk a lot about that, but if we want to develop
affordable housing, and we want to make it financially and economically and ecologically sustainable,
the best way, the most ecologically sustainable thing you can do is use a building that already exists,
rather than building another one. That's going to be a choice.
And so with this plan, we have the ability to preserve this character of Wilmington that we're talking
about, and not only just preserve it, enhance it. We're adding it to it. We're adding our generation's
stamp on this fine count of ours. And there really aren't many opportunities like that that you get
to see. So what's next? What can we do to make this happen? Our proposal, like we said, is for the CIB
to submit a request or a response to the RDC's RFP
or barring that those two bodies can come to some sort of arrangement that ensures that seminary point
persists, that seminary point is preserved, that it's made affordable, that it remains affordable.
I mean, this is policy. People make policy, and people can change policy, and people are who make the
decisions on this. And so the last thought that we talked about I think is the most viable solution
to realize this vision.
It's, again, it goes and from that new show, all these different boards, things that we had to learn
when we were figuring out how to save 7-8 point. I didn't know what the capital improvement board was
before this, and you didn't either, don't lie. I didn't know who was on the RDC. I didn't know how they
were appointed. I didn't know how the county handled all this conventions and stuff. Didn't know any
of that. But now, I think this is an opportunity for all of us to get involved in shaping the city
that we want to see in the future. And so if the RDC and the CID come to an agreement with respect to
a land swap, and if that agreement includes spinning off Seminary Point as its own nonprofit, well,
then we are in good shape. And then we can start refining these plans that we've made. We can start
engaging further with these lenders. We no longer have to caveat that, well, we don't actually own the land.
But we can now say that this is ours, and we want to make this thing happen. Can you help us?
And so yeah, one of the things that we want to do if we get the land is begin creating this cooperative
structure. Begin engaging the community members. Begin trying to get this community buy-in. Because
you all just raise your hands that you use and love these businesses. And I think there are probably
more people in the city who care about this sort of thing. And so we can get this community buy-in.
We can make this happen, folks. Yeah, so we have a few QR codes here that you can use to get involved.
One, to sign our letter of support, show that we have the support of the community, donate to our campaign.
This will be kind of the first bit of the crowdfunding that we've been talking about. And also, we want
feedback on this plan, on our presentation, on how clear we are, because if the public
understands it, the public is engaged on this, and on any issue, well then that is the catalyst for
very real change in our community. And that's what we want to see. So we're going to open it now to
a, oh nice pictures of these, there it is, forgot Jeff again. We're going to open it up for a Q&A session.
So we have microphones there and there. You guys can come up and ask questions if you want.
We'll be just here to answer anything that you guys have. Thank you so much for coming. I also just
want to say thank you to some of the decision makers who are here today. I won't call you out. And also
to some of the
our commercial occupants and tenants and business owners here. Thank you so much for coming out and
being here. Now I know some of you guys have questions. I mean, this is kind of complicated. Surely
someone has something to ask. Did we go up to the bottom of the slide? Yes, you can go to the bottom
of the slide. Whichever line up.
Do any of these existing rental units have accommodations for people with disabilities or an older adult
who wants to age in place and just existing on social security and have no steps to get into
That is a great question. Unfortunately, the 21 units that are currently viable are all upstairs. I
think it is definitely a hope that we have that at the building at 432, where the residential unit is
going to be demolished, that when we plan to build back there, that there would be certainly
accessible units for that contingent of the population. Because it is definitely an issue in
the affordability crisis that if you have a set income because of social security, that $200 rent increase
also affects the older population, for sure. Thank you. And also as a follow-up, the people that are
living in there now, hopefully they'll be able to continue
to live in it after this project is completed, and while they're there, will they have to be moved out
while the renovations are being done, and do you have plans for that? That is a great question as well.
So the timeline that we are kind of looking at, so there are currently 21 units, and I believe 12 of
those are currently occupied.
Sorry, there are 29 units of affordable housing. There will be 21 units, and 12 of those are currently
occupied. We're not entirely sure what those lease situations are, how many people have taken the extension,
but the first priority if Avalon Land Trust gets the property would be to improve the number of units
so that whoever wants to stay there, those units are the first ones that
that get the deferred maintenance that they are currently experiencing addressed. And so it might involve
them moving, but it might be from one unit to another unit on the same property. Thank you. Hello. I
had a question about the proportion of commercial spaces to community spaces that y'all might be envisioning.
I don't know if it's too early in the process, you know, to be thinking about that, but you had mentioned
rhinos at one point as a community org that used to exist here in Bloomington and had a physical space.
I know they're currently engaged in a campaign to potentially try to bring that back. Is there a certain
percentage of the sort of like what is now commercial space or used to be artisanally that you see being,
you know, you could subsidize and make happen as a community space?
So it definitely depends on what commercial tenants are there currently that are interested in staying.
We want to give those businesses priority, but I know that my sister's closet for example,
already has a location elsewhere secured. So that is a space that we would love to see. It also, Rhinos,
for those of you who don't know, is a music venue and was a kind of all ages space that was really beloved
in the community. And my sister's closet would kind of be an ideal location just because it doesn't
have any residential units above it. So it doesn't have the same
core grammar concerns or things like that. So it does kind of depend. We're also talking to the former
owner of Artisan Alley for the space that used to be Artisan Alley and bringing some space like that
back. But it is definitely something that we're open to a lot of kind of different mechanisms. But until we have
It's very difficult to get commercial tenants when you don't own the building yet. People don't want
to sign contracts, apparently, for space you don't own. Shockingly. But thank you so much for your question.
Did that answer your question? I believe so. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else, please? I see you raised
your hand. If you want to shout your question, we'll try to repeat it in case people don't hear. Absolutely.
So do the current commercial tenants and residential tenants
What's your relationship with them? Are they, broadly speaking, on board with this? Where are they in
this process? We've been actively engaging the actual tenants. To be honest, a lot of them have been
expressing that they want to get more involved, but a lot of their lives do not operate around traditional,
like how we see conventional timelines around meeting times, et cetera.
They see us as the people that are fighting and advocating for them. I mean, we have a current tenant
on our team that will be helping build the cooperative. Want to raise your hand? Yeah, team. I also
just want to add that we are in conversation with a lot of the commercial spaces as well. And they are
also interested in staying to different degrees.
and are definitely encouraged by everything that's currently going on with the CID and RDC. Yeah, and
just for a little bit more background on this, when the leases were terminated, when the current tenants
were informed that their leases wouldn't be extended, there was some degree of support from different
community groups and different county groups to help them find
similar housing at a similar cost at a similar location. It did not work. And so some people have found
other arrangements. Some people are just staying there until they get fully evicted because they don't
want to uproot their lives. And so a number of tenants have expressed to us explicitly that they would
love to be part of this new cooperative structure, even if they're not going to be at every meeting
or they're not going to be
giving presentations on the financial, they're interested in the fact that they can stay in their home
and they won't have to be priced out. I mean, that should be enough for anybody, really. Yes, please,
please. Yeah, walk up to them. You can line up and form a queue. Just for the QR code that came up earlier,
what is this? Is this close enough? What are these first round of donations for? What would they be?
So this first round of donations is for things like initially legal support, right? We have a lawyer
that we're working with who has been very generous with his time and energies. We'd love to be able
to pay him properly. But it's also building whatever expenses that come up in the process. If we do
go through with this deal, I mean, there's all sorts of things called closing costs that we'll have
to be able to fund. And there's also a thing with lenders in which
they would like anyone receiving their loans, any department they have, to have some capital on hand
to just ensure that if something happens, the project wouldn't be instantly put out of this lender.
And so that's what the funds would initially go to. Thank you. That's a good question. Is this on? Yeah,
we're very high up. I just have two questions.
The second would be, I think BCL is great, but I didn't think it attracts a specific demographic. And
I think this would be, I think we cater to people outside of that demographic with different values.
And so, how are you planning on managing that? We can't hear her. Okay, so the first question was,
I'm sorry, can you say it? The construction. Yeah, the first question was about managing the construction.
This is a big project, and a bunch of volunteers might not be the best people to take that on. But that's
why, in this project, we have included not only a property manager, but also a part-time staffer who
would be taking on these sorts of things. And being able to have their job is to think about the process,
to guide the process, be a point of contact for people if they have concerns, wants, wishes, or desires.
And so that's priced in. And even with the part-time manager, this doesn't mean that the volunteers
are going to go away. All of that stuff can't be done by volunteers, but the volunteers can certainly
help. As to the different demographics and the different kinds of people who go to BCL, you're exactly
right. The BCL houses, they're all single room occupancy, shared communal spaces, shared kitchens, shared
bathrooms, and things like that. This is not like that.
This is, these are one bedroom apartments. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. There aren't, you know, community
kitchens or community living rooms or anything like that. And so it would be a lot less of the,
you know, communal living and more of just the cooperative ownership structure that allows people to
have a say in their lives.
Think of it like if you have an apartment right now, your landlord asks you what you bought, and then
took that into account. But that's kind of the model that we're using. Does that answer your question?
And that is, I think, why we have baited in that the elect, that the stakeholders, like the residents,
let's say, will elect representatives.
So at the very least they have a vote for that, as well as just like decision making for their whole
stakeholder group. But for people, yes, that maybe have multiple jobs and can't go to weekly meetings,
et cetera, 100% that's OK. That's why they elect those representatives to be the voice for them. And
those stakeholders will have somewhat consistent meetings that they will arrange around the times that
are available.
I was just curious if there are any family co-ops in Bloomington, and assuming that some of the people
want to have families. And then also, is this a structure that you're talking about that can incorporate
other locations in the future, or is it just restricted to this location? Thank you so much for the
question. Did everyone hear the question? Anyone need it repeated? Wonderful. OK.
I would say that this absolutely is, again, since these are all single family or single bedroom units,
it does lend itself more to either single people, couples, or early families. I think the beauty of
this initially is that
Right now, it is incredibly difficult for young couples or single people to start saving for a house
or start saving for those larger expenses like a family. And so this is something that would actually
allow, for example, if that rent, the graph that I showed, where it's $1,100 a month for rent, if you
live here, you can save that $400 and put it towards something else.
So I think that this absolutely is something that can be beneficial to eventually families that are
just starting out. This also kind of goes back to the question that Jean asked, which is I do hope that
eventually there will be a project that happens at 432 South College and that it can be, this model
can be expanded there and serve as potentially larger
bedroom houses and units so that it can be beneficial for families so families could potentially be
there maybe you know it's an area that a daycare could go on the first floor I mean the possibilities
are kind of endless here and then your second question in terms of whether or not
this could be expanded, it absolutely could. If this is a project that goes through, and honestly, even
if it's one that doesn't, this is a model that is viable and worth doing in Bloomington. And no matter
what happens, this group isn't going anywhere. So this is absolutely something that we want to continue
promoting and doing in Bloomington. So thank you.
I'm speaking out of school, but I think part of her question also was, does BCL have units that have
families? The answer's yeah. Thank you. Yeah, so in my house alone, there was about three families that
have lived there. There are individual suite units that have rooms within the suites. And it was amazing
to be able to hang out with little kids and also be a grad student. It was a beautiful arrangement.
But there's a lot of projects actually in town right now, a lot of which Avalon Community Land Trust
also has a co-op that they have families in. And then Bloomington Cooperative Living has a lot of internal
projects that we're working on exactly around addressing the ability to have family-based cooperatives.
But not even just like shared living spaces that can be in the model, but like actually like having
a little home
for the family to exist in, but on a cooperative land. Hi, I don't have a question. I'm Capita Basilia.
I'm an assistant professor in geography at IU, and I'm a researcher of housing and evictions and community
land trusts. And I really want to commend Homes for All for all the work that you've been doing. It's
really been amazing how far you have come.
that if these bodies of government want to support deep affordable, permanently affordable housing that
is community controlled, this is it. So thank you. Thank you. Just one more question. It seems like
there are decision makers who are not fully on board. Who are they? Why are they not on board?
Well, so this alludes back to this complicated political situation that I was talking about.
On one hand, you have the property owners, the current property owners, the CID, the Capital Improvement
Board. And think of them as a machine designed to get the convention center built at all cost and get
the other project, the hotel and stuff built at all cost, come what may. And they express their goals
very clearly. They need a host hotel. They would prefer the College Square site.
But they have seminary point. And they were refused negotiations between them and the RDC to transfer
that property. And so they have moved forward with demolition permits, with evictions, and with just
general planning, reaching out to see if there are any developers who want to buy that property. So
that's their position. But the RDC has an open call for proposals
out for College Square. The CIB could, in theory, send a proposal in response to that RFP that includes
basically the plan that we're saying. OK, you give us College Square, and then we'll give an Avalon
community land trust seminary point to manage. But the current CIB has refused to do so because they
believe that the burden is no longer on them to do so because of the previous efforts that have been rejected.
That's their position, and I've talked with John Weicker, who's the head of the CIP, and that position
hasn't really changed. The other decision maker that would have to agree to this is the RDC,
the Redevelopment Commission. They have to agree to any deal that is proposed. So that's one hurdle.
And there might be something that they could do to encourage the CIP to submit a proposal, or they could
call them up and say, let's figure this out on the side or something. They have statutory requirements.
They have statutory restrictions on what they can do. But within those, there might be a way to solve
this. And at the top of this, these are all government bodies. And so the RDC is under the Housing and
Neighborhood Development Department
of Bloomington, and the CIB has members that were appointed by the county, by the city. And so there
are decision makers who could find a way to do this. We've outlined one path that they could do that.
And I encourage you all to, if you really want to see this happen, call your elected representatives.
Leave messages in city hall. Tell them what you think. Tell them what you want to happen. They work
for you. So that's what the situation is now. This past week,
We've seen movement from the mayor who came out in an interview and said that, yes, we would love to
see Seminary Point saved. So that might be open the door to new opportunities, new levers of pressure,
but we'll see what happens. I will say she did encourage the CIV to put forth. She did encourage and
she explicitly encouraged the CIV to put forth the proposal. Will the CIV listen?
We don't know. But we're exploring different ways to use our collective power to put pressure on these
groups to get them to do what is necessary to preserve a centenary point and encourage affordable housing.
The war doesn't stop with this public forum. The war continues. Is the CIP contact at all on your website?
It used to. I can't speak to it right now. But we can definitely put it there.
Just look up the Bloomington or the Monroe County Capital Improvement Board. Can you repeat the question?
Oh, sorry. The question was whether or not the CIB's contact information was on our Bloomington Homes
for All website. It was. We had an Action Network form that sent an email out to them. We might be able
to just forward around that right now, just after your question. I have a question. I'll go to the mic.
All right, we're budgeting for 15 more minutes. I mean, if you guys have more questions, please. I'll
take two minutes. So yesterday, I was having a meeting with some folks that seemed to be informed about
these things, which I'm not totally informed about it. But it seemed to be that with this constant
construction of hotels, hotels, hotels, that it seems that the hotels are having a problem filling the
hotels. And so the idea that there's going to be two more hotels seems to be totally
inconsistent with any management of good community, the building of good community. So I just wanted
to get your comments on that. Yeah. I don't know the status of the hotel's vacancy, but if what you're
saying is true, well, then it makes it all the more urgent for us to ensure that this land is being
used for affordable housing instead of hotels that won't be used.
I have a question. Is there an explicit deadline for us to get this proposal moving? So, yes. The deadline,
in fact, we have a slide that shows some of the critical points on the timeline. Right now, the CIP
has a request for proposals out on Seminary Point. Wow, there's so many slides.
But the CID has a request for proposals out on Seminary Point. So this has been putting the call out
that says, any developers who want to use this land to build something, send us a note. We can make
a deal. That period for proposal ends on June the 30th. Now at their last meeting this past week, the
CID has said that immediately after that, they're planning to hold a special session
in which they will appoint a group of people to review any offers that they might have gotten, and then
give a recommendation by their meeting on July 15th. So these are all critical dates that are important.
The Redevelopment Commission has a request for proposals out in College Square, and that period ends
on July 20th. So there'll be a period where
You know, these bodies have the proposals from developers who want to use this. But it's up to them
whether or not they want to act on this. So there is no timeline on when they have to act on these proposals.
You know, public pressure might change this timeline to some degree. But regardless, the CIB's timeline
about evictions is a critical one. August 31 was the date that these leases were extended to. But there's
no guarantee that the CIB will extend the leases beyond that.
One thing that could get them to extend those leases is if the RDC or the mayor's office or someone
got in contact with them and said that a deal for this land swap is on the table, extend the leases,
and we can talk about this in the interim. That would be one way to incentivize them to do that. But
if people are kicked out of the building and displaced, as long as the building is still standing,
There is still an opportunity for a movement on this. There's still an opportunity. Even if all the
businesses and all the tenants are kicked out, which is not a scenario that we want, but even if that
does happen, there is still an opportunity to save this housing and get new tenants there at these price
points. So that's kind of a complicated and difficult answer to this. There's a number of deadlines
for a number of different things. But for all the decision makers, we want this done as soon as possible.
Right, the longer we delay all this, the more businesses leave, the more tenants leave, and the harder
it is to sustain them. Yes. Yeah, so it looks to me that the map actually check out all these plans.
So it seems to me that this decision ultimately points out to someone somewhere to make some decisions,
right? So can you make a comment on, in terms of DCIB or the RDC thing, are they political appointees that
Or are they making these decisions with some other sort of interest in mind? A potential thing,
for example, is that if this deal comes out, you guys become a new sort of landlord in Putin. So is
there any competitive thing financially, economically, that might interfere with this decision between
the CIV and the REC?
That's a two-pronged question. I'll handle the second part first. Are there any financial incentives
to keep this deal from going forward? There is kind of one on the city's end, right? If we have a nonprofit
take control of this land, then that is tax revenue that the city doesn't get. And so if you're looking
at numbers, they might be incentivized to maximize the amount of tax revenue they get. Whether or not
that's worth displacing people from living there, that's a policy question, a policy decision.
But there's also the financial pressure of a developer. Like if there was a developer who says that
I watch Seminary Point because I want to do this with it because I know I can make a bunch of money
with it, well that would be another form of pressure against this kind of deal. The problem is, there
doesn't seem to be any developer. We don't know how many have reached out to the CIB in response to
their RP. Goodness gracious.
I'm so sorry, but you always do that, right? We don't know how many people have reached out to the Capital
Improvement Board in response to their request for proposals for secondary funding. It might be 100,
it might be zero, but we'll find out on July 1st, the day after the end of that call. And the other
part is the first part of the question is,
It's kind of about, can you say that first part again? Yeah, can you clarify the CIB and RDC? Are they
making these decisions based on some political or economic or financial agenda? What is their nature?
Yeah, so the CIB, like I mentioned, is a machine designed to build a convention center and its associated
projects. Build a hotel, build a convention center. Whatever happens, we need to get this done. They
are appointed by political bodies.
They actually have appointees from the city council, the county council, the county commission, and
the mayor's office. But they do operate independently. They have their own meetings. As far as I know,
no one has been like, you must do this for this purpose. They have their mandates written down, and
they know it. The RDC is a body made up of three people appointed by the mayor and two people appointed
by the city council. And their ostensible goal is to
Encourage the development of Bloomington for the betterment of Bloomington, which you can interpret
that in a lot of different ways. We are encouraging them to interpret that to mean preserve affordable
housing at all costs. And when it comes to the incentives, I mean, the baits into our presentation is
the fact that the incentive is that the better location for the Convention Center is remarkably clear.
And then for the RDC,
the incentive is that they're already working on affordable housing projects. And this would be to continue
to care about affordable housing, not in the sense of being a landlord, right? We already talked about
how our management ownership would work, but just in the sense of maintaining the thing that they're
already pursuing in other projects. Yeah. I also, I don't have a question.
but my name's Evie Barbu and I'm one of the members of the board at Avalon Community Land Trust, which
is the land trust in partnership with the board. And to echo what Patricia said earlier, I've been very,
very impressed with this group from the beginning. The thoroughness with which you've done your research,
reached out to everyone, like all the stakeholders, done your community feedback, formed relationships
with the tenants and the current commercial leases has been really incredible. And this is sort of exactly
why ACLT was formed, was to take on these sorts of projects and to be an umbrella organization that
can support these community-based, deeply grassroots,
projects committed to long-term affordability and shaping Wilmington. So I just want to say we're really
proud to be partners with y'all and are committed to follow through not just with the acquisition of
the property, but to be ongoing partners in developing a really strong community-based cooperative into
the future. So I'm also really happy to see so many people here and so many unfamiliar faces.
I encourage y'all to continue to be involved. Reach out to your representatives. They're not scary.
They're just people and members of the community. And so, yeah, continue to be involved. And thank you
for everything that you're doing. Projects like this do not happen without other organizations to help
support it. Sorry.
You've repeated the acronym so many times, but it's a little bit offensive to me. So we're waiting on
the RDC to put in for the RFP. We're waiting for the CIB to submit, sorry. I'm with you, we're ready
to go. The capital and Peru are more than one similar point. We want them to submit a proposal to the
RDC to call it square.
write that north property that everyone knows better for a conventional center. In exchange, in a sense,
for a sender eight point. To come to Avalon Camino Land Trust as a sender eight point cooperative. So
they've not done that this round because they've been rejected in the past. I'm assuming that with these
rejections, just because of how they took it, they go, that's come with criticism? Yes, so right now
the claim is that the appraised values of the two lands are different enough for them to not be an equal exchange.
But the thing that we're saying and the thing that city council is saying and the thing that the mayor
is saying is that we don't look at it as a subsidy for the convention center. We look at it as a subsidy
for affordable housing. Right. And the CIB is one of those boards that have people who've been elected
by the mayor, appointed by the mayor, elected by the council. Yes. Yes. Great.
Sorry, for a moment I was just kind of coming up with potentially a strange pride thing. So that was
becoming really hard for me to wrap my head around. Like, what are we waiting on and why, if we have
basically everyone's approval, quote unquote, except the CIVs, what we've been stuck waiting on for
them, if it's really just boiling down to well, they've been rejected once they find somebody. Yeah,
did you want to? Yeah, I was just going to say, I think it comes down to the fact
didn't have that mandate that would have allowed them to move forward with it for a long time. And we've
only recently had a lot of action on the city council's part or on the mayor, right? Like, things have
changed in just the last month or two that, yeah. Is that correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of true,
right? Things have changed over the last month. Like, yeah, a few weeks ago, the city council voted
8-0 endorsing this kind of plan. Two days ago, the mayor came out and said,
Yes, we want to save Seminary Point. But after both of these things, the CIB has come out and said,
well, we're still not going to submit a proposal until the RDC says, no, we're going to talk about this
land swap outside of this formal RFP process. They say that they don't want to submit a proposal. You
can go and actually read this in John Weikert's own words.
He left a comment on the most recent B Square Bolton article about this, you know, he comments there,
he reads it. And he said it, he lists the times that he's asked the RDC to swap the land and it goes
back to like 2024. And his reasoning for not continuing now is because ostensibly the RFP is still asking
for $7 million.
But I think the indication from the city council and the indication from the mayor means that if a proposal
was submitted that didn't reach that price point, but that still reached this mandate of affordable
housing, then it would be fairly considered and evaluated. He doesn't seem to care about it. There are
a lot of mechanisms that we can use to push on this. But fundamentally, if these bodies don't come to
some sort of arrangement,
which they have the ability to do to some degree, even outside of the RFP process. If they don't come
to some sort of arrangement, and soon, well then what I said will happen. The tenants will continue
to leave, and the property will be demolished. Thank you for this question. It is 1.30. I just want
to be respectful of everyone's time. There are so many important questions here, and especially there's
a lot of complex political work that needs to be done.
Two key things that we can ask you to do is to email John Whitehart and the CIB to submit a proposal
to the RDC, which we'll call it Square, and to also, you can look up when the CIB meetings are. We're
gonna be there, okay? And the second thing that you can do is email and engage the RDC members to ask
them to engage with the CIB, potentially in a non-traditional way, and not to do requests for a proposal,
and or to help them accept, if the city does submit a proposal to accept that for the sake of saving
affordable housing. Those are two clear bodies that you can take away today to start engaging with,
coming to those meetings. You can see the calendars on the city website. We will be there. You will
not be alone if you go there, okay? And if you want more of this, please talk to us after. Anyone with
a button that says Save Center Point, Bloomington Homes for All,
We are representing this project. Let's talk more, guys. We can make this happen as a community. This
can be something that we leave as a generational piece of what Bloomington can be. Because I don't like
the fact that we call that area Crow Ghetto. That can be something that we make incredibly beautiful.
So this is the time. Thank you so much, each of you for your time today.