Editorial staff | Jul 24, 2018
Trinitas Ventures is implementing a unique and promising process in going to Bloomington residents in a public manner to hear ideas for the former Kmart property on East Third Street.
The preliminary name of the area is the District at Latimer Square, and its size and potential can be deceiving because of its current use as a big box store, a massive parking lot and some outlots used as businesses. Trinitas spokesman Travis Vencel notes the 12-acre area is the size of six city blocks in downtown Bloomington. For scale, that would match up to Washington Street to College Avenue and Kirkwood Avenue to Eight Street.
Consider how many ways that space in downtown Bloomington is being used, and that begins to suggest the possibilities for the east-side location.
Citizens can make their suggestions known starting today at Binford Elementary School, 2300 E. Second Street. Three days of workshops will let individuals in on the front end of a development planning process. After interacting with community members from 1-7 p.m. today, master developers, architects and engineers will finish three alternate draft plans for the property that will be presented at the school at 9 a.m. Wednesday morning. Those ideas will be discussed further, and the ideas will be winnowed down more for a presentation later on Wednesday.
Discussion of architecture is planned for Thursday.
That’s much different from many development plans, which are seen by members of the public for the first time when they go to regulatory boards in relatively finished form.
Vencel, whose title is executive vice president of development for Trinitas, is excited about doing the plan this way.
“It’s a much better, hands-on process than just having a developer throw something out there and seeing people react to it,” he said in an interview last week.
While all ideas will be accepted, Vencel talks about a mixed-use “district” that would be a magnet for people to live, work and visit, with residential, retail, a hotel and restaurants all possibilities. Bloomingfoods East, which now stands on one corner of the property and is staring at the end of its lease, could be included in some form in the development, Vencel said.
City regulators will get the last word on the project. However, this method of openness and input is a welcome way to move the process forward. It’s an important piece of property, and this process will help guide a valuable use well into the future.
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