- Well, it is it is 3 o'clock. So let me call the meeting of the Monroe County Capital Improvement Board
- for November 19th, 2025 to order and I'll ask Mr. Whitlatch to take the attendance. President? Here.
- Here. Here. I believe absent. Yes, he will be absent today.
- Item number 2, approval of consent agenda. You've received the minutes of the board meeting of October
- 15th and claims and a financial report. And if I could have a motion to approve the consent agenda.
- So moved. Second. Moved and moved by Mr. Silverstein, seconded by Mr. McKim. Any questions, discussion?
- Seeing none, would you please take the roll? John Weichart. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
- Yes. Thank you. Item number three, Treasurer's Report, Mr. McKim? No report. Thank you. President's
- Report, and I think, Deb, do we have this for just on the screen? Thank you. Let me report.
- a couple of items here under President's report. First of all, review of approved change orders under
- $25,000. And as a reminder, in March of this year, you authorized me to approve any change orders of
- under $25,000, any contingency change orders of under $25,000. I reported to you in October that we
- had two of them, one for $2,100, one for $11,350.
- And since October, there have been three additional contingency change orders approved, one for fire
- protection revision at $2,095, one for bridge foundations and structural revisions at $13,964, and one
- toilet compartment spec change, which is a deduction, 2023. So as I said, we've flushed out some savings
- through that particular change order.
- So those have been the change orders that I've approved prior to this meeting, both in October and November.
- In addition, I signed the contract change orders for alternates four and 13 that were approved at the
- September meetings. Alternate four was for the kitchen upgrade, and the current building on alternate
- 13 was for the AV.
- and tech infrastructure in the current building as part of the renovation. In addition, I signed an
- application for a fire suppression system. I wanted to mention that we forwarded all the change orders
- for you so you would have them in advance of the meeting so you would have them in the event you had
- any questions about them.
- What I want to mention is that some of those in this category, certainly in the below $25,000 category,
- came to me because there was with them some sense of urgency about them. We had contractors on site.
- We could get the work done. It was a savings to us if we went ahead and moved forward with them. Since
- I began to approve these orders, we have, I hope, perfected a system of how we're going to move these
- contingency change orders forward.
- That includes the written narratives that you've seen in what I forwarded to you, a narrative of what
- the change is, the cost of the change, signatures of our architect, of our construction manager, and
- of our owner's representative.
- in advance saying they have all reviewed and are recommending these changes, then it comes to me and
- then I approve them. That same process is what works for any change orders that are over $25,000. So
- you're going to see in the next slide here in Deb's presentation that we have change orders for you
- to look at today that are over the authority that you granted to me. What is incumbent on
- on our folks who help us with all this, especially I guess our construction management team, is that
- as they see contingency change orders that are approaching that threshold where it requires board approval,
- that's either going to mean it needs to be held until the next regular meeting or it's going to require
- a special meeting of the board to approve any of those change orders that are over $25,000. So obviously
- it's incumbent on our team
- to be monitoring that to know that in order to have a special meeting, it requires coordination of your
- schedules as well as 48 hours notice. So, senses of urgency about getting things done quickly when they
- cost more than $25,000, those are the requirements. We need time to coordinate a meeting and we need
- to have 48 hours notice and everyone understands that and we're working towards those goals, I believe,
- very successfully. So, that is my report on
- The change orders that I've approved, so happy to answer any questions you may have about those under
- $25,000. Okay, seeing none. The next item is the request for approval of change orders over $25,000.
- And then secondly, a change orders log that's been developed. And I'll turn this over to Deb Koons,
- JAS held, so that she can go over those with us. Great.
- Thank you. As is customary or typical in most construction projects, particularly when we are digging
- underground and trying to put our foundations in, there are a number of items that have been uncovered
- that need attention. Most of them are over 25,000. The first two fall, the first two and actually the
- third one fall into that category, which are things that we have uncovered that we needed to address.
- They are include existing foundation removal, which was found underneath the ground.
- We're downtown. These things happen on almost every downtown project. So compaction improvements in
- order to make sure that we have the right better compaction for the increased foundations. That's what
- that's related to. Electrical revisions is actually sort of a host of changes, and I'm happy to talk
- through those. I'll have to take it off screen to talk through those.
- but those include some upgrades to switch gears, some upgrades to actual locations of electrical within
- the building, but there's a whole bunch of things associated with that which is in the background details
- that you've received. The detention system rock removal again also falls into that category of
- These are things that have been found underground. More rock is there than what was previously identified.
- And so this is one in particular that has, we believe, we've really addressed the east side. This is,
- we're anticipating the same or more to be on the west side. And so this is a projected number. I will
- say this in particular is a projected number. And Wettle has agreed to do that really timing material
- with a cap here. And so hopefully that number comes down, but in these kinds of situations,
- situations until they really open it up, we don't know. And so we want to give them the flexibility
- to do that. Then the last one are foundation modifications that really relate to the ever infamous 24-inch
- sanitary line that we've talked a lot about. And that's the largest one at 126-815. I know there's a
- slide beyond this that is going to get more information about that. Sarah, do you want to talk about
- any of those, the last one maybe?
- Yeah, sure. I'll talk about the last one if you just go slide. I'll talk about this one because it is
- related to a couple of other change orders you have seen, but not exactly the same. There were three
- related requests from the CBU. One was upsizing the sanitary line. You all remember that. Two was moving
- the line. The third related request was lowering the foundation in order to make line maintenance access
- easier later.
- One and two we have addressed in previous discussions and previous change orders. Three has proven to
- be difficult. And so the design team, in particular the structural engineer in coordination with the
- civil engineer, have been working essentially June through September 8 and not working through with
- the CBU to maybe not lower the foundation in order to do that. That was not the path chosen. We needed
- to lower it.
- based on the request. And then to figure out an easy way, the least expensive way to meet the request.
- So through September, the team worked on that to come up with options, submitted that to
- to the construction team to come back with the estimate and the cost of the deeper and wider foundations
- at the 126-815. And so the cost summary that you see below is taking all of those changes, the upsizing,
- the moving, the lowering foundations, all together to give you a total impact of those three requests
- as related to the sanitary line changes. The net impact to the construction contingency, however, is
- the 138-165 because you have already handled
- rest of it. And I'm happy to answer questions. Yeah, go ahead. Mr. McKim. Can you just talk a little
- bit more about how the deeper foundation actually makes maintenance of the line easier? I mean, why
- would that be? Because then you can dig up the line using only a backhoe. The deeper foundation essentially
- acts as an underground retaining wall.
- And so it requires no additional shoring of the foundation in order to dig up and access the line.
- Thank you. You're welcome. And that was, and that was at CBU's request. That's not correct. That wasn't,
- that wasn't as part of our original design that came later. Correct. Any other questions? All of this
- was a CBU request. Yes.
- And I would point out that under the cost summary, the $3,080 estimated credit is what the CBU said
- they would reimburse us for as a result of moving the line and upsizing it from 18 to 24 inches. So
- that's what we can expect reimbursement from the CBU. Any other questions of Sarah?
- Great. And so just in summary, we thought it would be important to see if we take the changes that were
- under $25,000 and the changes that were over $25,000. Again, these are all within the contingency that
- is within the guaranteed maximum price. It is essentially 13% of the contingency. So you see the second
- to last line says original contingency, $2.4 million, $2.402.180.
- by the approvals of 3.15, 3.58. That leaves us a little over $2 million of contingency. We are going
- to be fully out of the ground in February, March-ish, in the first quarter of next year. So everybody's
- feeling pretty good about where we're at overall, that we've only experienced impacts of 13% at this
- point. And I would mention, I know the board understands it. I just want to mention for the public,
- that none of this impacts our overall $52 million construction budget. These are not costs above our
- $52 million construction budget. They are costs that were built into the contingency that was built
- into that $52 million construction budget. Any questions for Deb? One quick question. At 13%, would
- you say we're 13% complete with the project?
- Um, probably pretty close. I mean, we have the steel, if you look at it from a dollar's, I mean, it's
- usually more figured on a dollar's perspective. So from a dollar's perspective, yes. Um, you know, when
- you look out there, does it look like you're 13%? It probably doesn't feel like 13% yet because a lot
- of what's been happening is underground, right? So that, that's a, it's a, can be a little bit of a
- nissan where when you're looking at it, but obviously there's a lot of steel going up. So steel is one
- of the most expensive pieces.
- that we have coming into play here. Any other thoughts? Yeah, sorry. No, I would absolutely agree. And
- I think that, again, when you're underground and trying to get out of the ground, that's your highest
- unknowns unforeseen. So I feel very comfortable with that. You might be slightly underneath that from
- a dollar perspective, but very close. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think moving forward, if there
- were any other impacts
- to the contingency fund, they would be related to either, once we're out of the ground and we're going
- up, they would be either related to design or budget estimate adjustments that would have to be made.
- Is that pretty accurate to state it that way? Harry, no objection. I'll state it. No, I think that's
- right. I think I was just going to step back maybe just to provide some larger context to all this.
- Changes in construction is a normal part of the process, right?
- What's important here is contingency was built into the guaranteed maximum price in order to accommodate
- as many of those as possible. No one around this table is going to guarantee that there will be no changes
- at all, right, to the contract. There could be something else that comes up or that needs to happen.
- But the idea is to try to stay within the condition that's been established from the GP. That's really
- the ultimate goal. But can we do it for sure?
- We will see. Construction, we still hammer nails the same way we did, and we still lay bricks kind of
- the same way we did for many, many decades. So it is a sometimes not very straightforward process. Well,
- and the fact that we're this far along and we've used 13% of the contingency, I feel fairly comfortable
- about that. We still have a very large contingency fund left.
- We will continue to move forward and see where we go. Any other questions or discussion about this,
- Mr. McKim? Actually, can you talk a little bit more about the electrical changes?
- So this is not in a nice, neat format. So let me just talk about them, and they can be made part of
- the notes. So the disconnect between the existing building and the new fire alarm, we've had it originally
- shown as two systems. We've got to make sure that it's one. We had some minor mounting heights that
- had to be adjusted. We added an extra exit light that was missing. We had to make sure that there was
- a heat pump that was missing.
- We had to connect a flow switch, a fire alarm pull station. These are all onesy, twosy things that were
- going on. And then they also revised the disconnect schedule and revised the electrical panel schedules
- based on any final floor plan revision. There's a list of about 10 of them there. Any other questions?
- If not, is there a motion to approve the contingency change orders over $25,000? So moved. Mr. Teese,
- moved and seconded by Joyce Poling. Any further discussion? If not, we should please take the roll.
- John Weichart? Yes. Doug Bruce? Yes. Jeff McKim? Yes. Joyce Poling? Yes. Jim Silverstein? Yes.
- Adam Teese? Yes. Thank you.
- Item number six, construction update. Andrew Sherry. Yes, sir. Thank you. Andrew Sherry, project manager
- with Weddle Brothers. Share my screen. Is there a video that we see all the time? Got a lot. Nice job,
- John. I haven't gotten any. I'll shoot you a text next time. Okay, so a few things to talk about today.
- The detention system.
- Our detention system, our structural steel, and then some upcoming activities. This drone footage, this
- aerial photo was from last week. I was really hoping to get this week's in there to see the north side
- being set and detailed. But afterwards, we can look out the window in the cold rain. The detention system,
- we've talked about that in the last meeting. So this is going underneath the loading dock parking lot
- area. The detention system excavation is ongoing, approximately 90% completed.
- We're continuing the installation of the four and a half foot pipe, working away from the east to the
- west and probably have a little over 50% of the pipe in the ground backfill taking place. I think they're
- pumping some water today, so more backfill. Also the structural steel that we're seeing, so hard to
- see on this photo, but it shows a little bit of our logistics plan as far as like the sequencing, one
- through 22 or something like that.
- We've got the long spans, you know, 140 foot sections that we've got coming out. So this is kind of
- the detail that we've put into it from a planning perspective. So sequence one and two, the yellow that
- you see on the east side of the project, and then the northeast corner there we've set. We have sequence
- three, which is the northwest corner being delivered, interaction beginning this week. They'll work
- through Thanksgiving week next week on that. And then as we approach
- into December, these long span trusses. So again, these long span trusses are what's gonna span over
- the exhibit hall for the open area. Those are 26,000 pounds, 140-ish feet long. They'll come in three
- foot sections and be built on the ground and then picked in the air, then braced, and then we'll go
- down and do the next one. So here's a cool picture. Maybe we talked about this in our video, maybe we didn't.
- But this is on the east side of the project looking north towards the 4th Street parking garage. This
- is what it looks like today in the field versus what it's going to look like with the rendering based
- off of the model. So the corridor and kind of putting that all into perspective. So pretty neat photo
- comparison there. Again, a huge part milestone that's upcoming is the deliveries and erections starting
- in December of these long span trusses. So again, each span
- will be delivered in the three sections fabricated on site, set into place. Be a lot of picking, setting,
- moving the crane, picking, setting. Again, 26,000 pounds, we have 21 total long span trusses on the
- site. So that will really make the building take shape. All the sequence one, two, and three that we've
- talked about today that we have in place are ongoing. We'll be prepping to receive these. So pretty neat.
- Following that, as the crane gets out of the way and we set all these long-span trusses, we're going
- to start pouring slab on grade, prepping for underground, solve our sanitary, our storm, drain lines,
- things like that. So we'll get these long-span trusses about midsection of the building. This blue and
- this purple that you see on the east side will be the first sections that we pour. Again, mechanical,
- electrical, and plumbing, underground is all going to go into place.
- followed by stone and geogrid, which is just a reinforcement on top of the subgrade to help with structural
- stability. And then we have these slab on grade pores broke out into five main pores. They may be detailed
- out a little bit more. This, the south east side, which is where the kitchen area is, there's a ton
- of underground that goes into that area. So we may break that out into two pores, but from a general
- idea, this is where we're standing now. Um,
- A big piece coming up in the beginning of the year is the connector. So we are going to start prepping
- at the end of this year within the next few weeks for demolition over here next to the existing convention
- center to start with ground improvements, which is the drill rig and the aggregate piers that we did
- originally on site. Then we will follow that with foundations. And then in the January into January,
- February timeframe, we're going to start setting steel with the connector. So we're working through
- our MOT changes. I know that it's been
- five months since we've talked about all these plans, but we're going to work through the college closure,
- get that approved and then set this for the decking, open the road back up and then in March, spring,
- early summer, whenever we follow with the glass and the brick will enclose the connector and do it again.
- Yeah, sorry.
- What is it? Oh, maintenance of traffic plan. Yes. And the maintenance. I was like, did I say something
- else? And the maintenance of traffic plan must be approved by the city, right? Yes, absolutely. And
- then it will, they will be noticed. We'll make sure that everybody knows what's happening. We're going
- to send flyers out, but there is going to be a closure college in order to set the bridge, right? I
- think that probably goes without saying, but we need to save for everyone's benefit, including the public.
- There will be a time where there is restrictions
- everyone's safety when the bridge is set absolutely and then it will go down to a if it's approved by
- the city the maintenance of traffic will come down to a limited lane yes through a lot of next year
- and we work through these plans with our initial approval for the MOT plan that we have out there the
- maintenance of traffic plan that we have out there currently so we're working with our representative
- Kyle Ball on that and talking through this process and really finalizing what those dates are going to be
- what that means and when we can close down, open and again, get that approved. Yeah. About how long
- will college actually be fully closed? We had it on the original schedule for about two weeks. That
- is in order to accommodate setting the structural steel, detailing the structural steel, placing slab
- on deck and pouring that to open it back up. We're working through some of the connection details, bolted,
- welded, those types of aspects to see
- And we prepped that on the ground and kind of minimize that closure. But we're still in that planning.
- That's good. And the meeting where this will publicly be reviewed is one in December? So we're finalizing
- that now. So we've reached out to Kyle Ball, BRCJ, myself. And we haven't finalized that date yet.
- So we've hesitated from showing a proposed maintenance of traffic plan here because it does have to
- go through another public body before it gets approved. And then once that is approved, then we can
- share it out. And what time of year might the lanes be closed? By schedule, we're looking at the end
- of January, beginning of February. Yeah, I think it's also just
- there's two parts to this, right? There's the full closure that we're talking about, and then there'll
- be partial lane closures and that partial enclosure, at least right now we believe, correct me if I'm
- wrong, will go in through the summer. Yeah. So after we do the full closure, we're hoping to have college
- at one lane to allow for us to get the rest of our demo done. And then as we get into these summer months,
- be prepping for curbs, asphalt placement, sidewalks, those types of things.
- And again, we'll have, you know, over the duration of this project, we'll have two closures to college,
- one to erect the steel, pour the decking and then to enclose the connector. Absolutely. Understood.
- Which is why we're bringing it up now, right? Anticipation. It's never fun. It's going to be exciting
- to watch, but it won't be exciting to drive. Yeah. The people placing the barricades are nervous too.
- So that's a,
- Those are the updates that I have for the project currently and some upcoming milestones. Any other
- any other questions for Andrew? So with this closure, are there any other items? I know this is early
- in the project, but signals, traffic signals and things I know that we're going to be updated. Are those
- items that may be done at the same time as this closure or maybe the second closure that could be coordinated
- with the city? Yeah, so there's, I think, five different MOT plans for this project. We won't do any
- of the other road work currently with this closure. That will be next summer fall when we get into the
- third street remediations and things like that. Any other questions? Thank you, Andrew.
- The next item, arts project update. And I see Galen Cassidy and Holly Warren are both with us today.
- So welcome and happy to hear your update. Yeah, there's the handheld over there. Okay. Hey, everyone.
- I am Holly Warren. I am the Assistant Director for the Arts for the City of Bloomington.
- This is Jeff Underwood on my t-shirt. This is a little mainstay from his city days. So I'm happy to
- report that the call for qualifications closed on Monday. We received 180 applications for this call.
- Yeah. So very good. Probably the most call.
- responses we've had to a call like this. So very proud, also a little overwhelmed right now. So of those
- 180 applications, 14 were international and eight were from local Bloomington artists. That's actually
- a good number from Bloomington considering the type of scale and qualifications that we're looking at
- for this call. So even with that high number of applications, we're still pretty hopeful that we're
- gonna be able to get that narrowed down to our five finalists before
- the end of the year. So Galen and John have both given me the blessing to do a first pass of
- those applications, and that's going to get us down to about a pool of 75 people. All of the applicants
- are strong. We're just seeing many applicants in this pool, while they're doing really good work as
- muralists or people who do kind of one-off sculptures, they're not necessarily ready to
- integrate their work into the type of architecture that the expansion is going to have. So we're really
- looking to focus in on those applicants who know how to put their work in a built environment. And then
- we will ask the review committee to look at those. I'm hoping between 60 and 80 applications to get
- us down to five. And the process that we'll use to do that is we'll assign first, second, and third
- reviewers for applications. So everyone will only be looking at about 30 applications total.
- They'll be using a rubric that's been approved by the Bloomington Arts Commission to help us score,
- and then we'll meet twice before December 16th to just kind of duke it out and see where we land as
- far as those final lists. So, feeling very good, we got some really
- amazing applicants for this, just people who are really considered to be at the top of the field when
- it comes to public art, doing work that is interactive, engaging, respectful of the public. So I'm really
- happy, and I really think we're going to get something that's really fantastic. And I'm happy to answer
- any questions you have. Oh, that's a surprising number to me, but I'm pleased to hear it. Any questions?
- Thank you. Thanks. Good job, Galen. Nice report. All right, next item, hotel update. And I know we have
- Anne Killian Hanson is online, I believe, and was going to give us a hotel update. Is that doing? And
- Anne is the Director of Housing and Neighborhood Development and the Executive Director of the Redevelopment
- Commission for the City. Hi, good afternoon.
- Yes, I wanted to provide a brief update as to where things remain right now. I'm sure everyone is curious.
- The RDC has remained committed to supporting the convention center hotel project.
- Despite offering a significant contribution, a very large funding gap does still exist. We've analyzed
- our capacity and have been diligently looking for additional financial support to fill the gap and so
- far without luck. So without additional participation from other partners, we appear to be running out
- of options. We do hope to have a written response on behalf of the RDC the first week of December.
- Happy to answer any further questions. I hope everybody could hear that. I didn't hear it extremely
- well. So you're and if I understood correctly, you're you're expecting the first week of December that
- she'll have a response. Is that correct? Yes, we should have a formal written response the first week
- of December following our RDC meeting scheduled for December 1st. Okay, thank you. Any any questions for Ann?
- Thank you, Ann. Well, we're on the hotel update and I want to report I've already advised the city team
- and Vince Dora of the fact that today I'm asking Jim Whitlatch and Deb Koontz to reconvene our original
- RFP evaluation group for the hotel to revisit the original RFP to see if
- since about 18 months have passed, what revisions or additions may be necessary to that RFP, and to
- do that before our December meeting. I realize, and I'm hopeful that the parties, as they continue to
- move forward, will have success in their conversations. But by December, over 14 months will have passed
- since we've made the referral of Dora Hospitality to the city.
- And I don't want us to lose any more time in the event those discussions are not successful.
- Having said that, I want to make clear, and I've advised the city and I've advised Vince as well, that
- if the city team and DORA cannot agree on the Bunger Robertson property to move forward with the hotel,
- that simply means that the DORA and the city have not agreed on the Bunger Robertson property.
- Dora has still been formally selected by the CIB as our hotel developer, so that given the authority
- we have under both county ordinance and the interlocal agreement. So two things, I've asked Vince to
- be prepared to advise us in the event that Vince and the city are not able to reach agreement on the
- Bunger Robertson property, to advise us
- if he wants to revisit the parcels that we made available in the original RFP, if the Bunger Robertson
- discussions do not bear fruit. So having reconvened and revisited the RFP does not mean we're going
- to reissue it. It simply means that we would reissue it if DORA, whom we have formally selected as our
- hotel developer, were to tell us that they see no path forward in their development for a host hotel.
- So if they were to tell us that the discussions with the city over Bunga-Roberson have not been successful,
- and as they've reevaluated both the south and west parcels that we made available in the original RFP,
- if they were to tell us at that point that they are not interested in moving forward, it would only
- be at that time that we would reissue an RFP. And in the last 18 months, if that were to
- To happen, I just want to remind that we had seven hotel developers who responded to our request for
- qualifications, three that responded when Vince did to the request for proposals. 18 months have passed.
- Situations may have changed. There may be others. I'm hopeful that Vince and the city can still make
- this work, because I think we all agree that the Bunger Robertson property is probably the best and
- most suitable for this development. But if they can't,
- We need to be prepared to move forward. So that is why I'm asking Jim and Deb to reconvene the committee,
- revisit that original RFP so that we're prepared and we don't lose any more time if it becomes necessary
- for us to reissue it. Happy to answer questions if you have them about that. Kim? Yeah, so as part of
- this task of bringing the committee back together and looking at the RFP,
- Is the committee also going to look at what our requirements were to make sure that they're still relevant
- and possibly consider? Yeah, no, I think the charge to the group is to revisit that original RFP to
- see if it needs to be revised, to see what, if anything, and what additions we may be able to add to
- it at this point. I would mention that one of them is that since that original RFP, there's been a market
- analysis done.
- And perhaps that market analysis that we've done or an executive summary of it might be part of what
- would be part of a new RFP. But I'm asking Jim and Deb to reconvene that group and let them come back
- to us in December and make any recommendations they need to on revisions. And again, I want to repeat,
- I'm hopeful of success in the current negotiations between the city and DORA on the Bunga Robertson
- property, but I just want us to be prepared in the event we need to be.
- Yes, I guess I. I hope that Dora and the city when they're analyzing this for the RDC, when they're
- analyzing this funding gap. Don't aren't assuming that that bridge that the bridge has to be part of
- the project. I know that certainly adds costs. That was never one of our requirements. That's something
- that we've built or anticipated in our design. I don't know to what degree that
- that add on features into the funding gap. And let me mention that in my conversations with the parties
- that we have mentioned, and the original RFP did mention a connection between the hotel and the expansion
- project, but we were talking about how are you going to connect between the South or the West? What
- are your plans to do that?
- any plan that would require a bridge like the one we have between our expansion and the current building
- were not a requirement of that plan. And in fact, we've not designed our own design for renovation that
- would include a way to do that. As I've spoken to the parties, I've said to them, you know, whatever
- we can do to help with a re-scope or answer questions about what should be in a host hotel. You know,
- for instance,
- a rooftop bar. Would that be a nice thing to have in a hotel? Yes, it would be. Is it something that
- should be absolutely required in a host hotel? I think not. So we're happy to revisit that. And I've
- told them we're happy to revisit that. And in conversations with them, I've suggested that we would
- consider re-scoping what they have been proposing to include
- you know, not to include a bridge, not to include a rooftop bar, not to include underground parking
- because there was never a guarantee there could ever be underground parking, you know, to downsize perhaps
- a meeting room space that's available. And by their analysis, we potentially saved at this point, $15
- million on the project just by considering doing those things. So our contribution to the project, we
- have no cash incentives to give to this project.
- What we have to give to the project and what we've offered to give to the project is savings, cost savings.
- And so what we proposed thus far would appear to be cost savings of $15 million to the project. And
- we continue to be available to help with that as long as we're able to, until we get to a point where
- we're no longer designing what we thought we were going to be designing. So again, both parties are
- aware of that.
- Both parties understand that, and I wish them well, and I hope they have a successful conclusion to
- this process. Any other comments? If DORA Group and the City don't come to an agreement between now
- and our next meeting, are we giving DORA Group a certain timeframe to decide on the other properties,
- the other locations?
- Well, we haven't because that would be a step, you know, a step after the step to say, let us know by
- December, if you can make this happen. I have, I have asked Vince to, what I've said to him is you don't
- have to answer now, but we would like to know in December, if this can't be worked out with the Bunga
- Robertson property for a signal from you, whether you have interest in the South and West properties.
- So, so hopefully there, there won't be any more time lost in that consideration.
- time is of the essence because we already know there's at least a two-year gap between the hotel and
- the convention center opening and it's getting longer with every day. I mean it's more than two years
- right now. It's two years plus two months plus whatever else we do between now and the RFP. So two and
- a half, three years. Yeah I think everybody agrees we're two and a half years away because you know
- the time required for design and all the approvals and construction so
- You know, we by December were 14 months into the referral was still that same two and a half year time
- frame moving ahead to have a host hotel. So I mean, we all know the challenges. We all know what,
- you know, what we're facing. So it's just incumbent upon the two parties to either agree what they can
- do with the Bunger Robertson property or to end that conversation and let us continue with Dora on the
- other properties if they had interest.
- Any other comments, questions? Okay, thank you. Any old business to be brought before the board?
- Seeing none, new business. I'm going to kick this back to Sarah, who I think wants to make an introduction.
- Well, I just wanted to introduce Karen Gilmore. Karen, wave to the people.
- Karen is our senior graphic designer. We'll be leading the wayfinding portion of the project. And so
- I figured she wanted to sit through a board meeting today. And you'd all want to put a name to a face.
- So welcome to the team, Karen. Thank you. Congratulations. We're so happy it's not Eddie. Yeah. Oh,
- I didn't see you sitting there, Eddie.
- All right. Next item of business, comments from board members. Any comments from board members? Okay.
- Seeing none, comments from the public. And if anybody from the public would like to make a comment,
- you have a two minute opportunity to do so. I'm sorry. Christopher M.D. from the chamber. Christopher,
- go ahead, please.
- Mr. Royhart, thank you, Board. This is Chris Turnfee from the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce,
- now that I've unmuted. I just wanted to bring up an issue that sort of affects the convention center,
- affects this convention center quite a lot, and that is the College and Walnut Corridor. The Planning
- Department had an open house the 28th and 30th of the last month on it, as they had two options that they
- sort of had laid out and one option took the entire city council chambers, the other one took the hallway,
- and it's a big, large engineering project. We had members of the plan staff and the administration in
- our advocacy council last week to sort of talk about it. And just want to give this board an update
- on where they sort of see it, that they are taking input right now. If you go to their website, you
- can do a Google form, but it is very specific and long in process.
- Um, if you look at the two options, they have the one way, uh, that is, uh, what it currently is, but
- that does subtract 82 parking spots. And then they had the, uh, two way conversion, which is, uh, I
- know disrupts a lot of what we're used to here in Bloomington. So what we have, uh, sort of put out
- to the planning department, they were very receptive of is a.
- more of not an open house, but a presentation of what they're thinking, why they're thinking this, and
- getting input then from members of the community, specifically the business community. So we can have
- a little bit of a back and forth on that. We're still looking at something that's four to five years
- away. And another option that is on the table too is to do nothing. So I just want to make sure that
- this board is aware of where we're at a little bit on that project.
- And, but the other thing is that it would be starting at least talking with one of the planners on the
- south end of that corridor, which of course you are part of that and with the convention center expansion.
- But if you have any questions, this is Christopher from the chamber, reach out to me. I will take your
- calls, emails or anything else. I'd be happy to talk further about this, but appreciate the time.
- Thank you, Christopher. And who else did we have? Oh, and John West.
- Thank you very much for giving me a little time to make a few comments. I'm John West. I am a commissioner
- on the Redevelopment Commission and also the designee from the Redevelopment Commission to help negotiate
- the hotel project. I concur with what I see as a consensus that this whole process is taking a long time.
- You know, I apologize, it's methodical. It takes a while. And it's not the only project that the RDC
- is involved in. And we've only got so much time. But that said, it's unfortunate that we're at the 11th
- hour here. We have spent quite a bit of time with City Legal and the controller's office to come up with
- or try to come up with every possible funding mechanism that's available to us. So when we come to our
- conclusion, it's not taken lightly. And we want this project to happen. We think that the Bunga Robertson
- property is ideal for the hotel. But funding is what it is.
- I would suggest that if the CIB determines to reboot and go back to the drawing board and the Bunga
- Robertson property is designated as the possibility for the location, then maybe we ought to rethink
- the process a little. Instead of creating a hotel wish list,
- and then kind of sending it to the city and the RDC to help to get it funded. Let's work with us first,
- figure out what kind of funding we have available to us, and then we can pursue a plan that kind of
- matches the funding. And then we can maybe not spend another 13 months doing this all over again.
- Thank you. Thank you, John.
- Anyone else? Okay. Next item is our next board meeting is Wednesday, December 17th, 2025 at 3pm. I often
- say you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here and we are now adjourned.