H-T report | Jul 28, 2018
Bloomington’s east side will look more like downtown if a concept sketched this week in a series of public workshops comes to fruition on the site of the former Kmart store on East Third Street.
Borrowing ideas from the city’s latest Comprehensive Plan and the “New Urbanism” playbook, the design team leading this week’s public exercise settled on a scheme that builds “up and in” instead of “down and out,” unlike the sprawling College Mall complex immediately to the west.
Much like every surface parking lot in the city’s central core has become an endangered species, fated to be supplanted by high-density, mixed-use development, so might the Kmart plan be the shape of things to come at the edges of Bloomington.
That’s not saying it’s either good or bad, but it is something that should be weighed as concepts become architectural drawings and site plans and waiver requests that will need local government approval. Much like Smallwood Plaza set the tone for downtown student housing projects, what happens with the Kmart site could become the model for future development in fringe areas of the city.
While people attending the final public workshop on Thursday at Binford Elementary School saw a lot to like in the sketches done by the team representing development company Trinitas Ventures, the mass and scale of the proposed buildings and parking structures gave some people pause.
“How can you get everything in there?” asked one woman, who thought the 12-acre development looked “squished together.”
There was a lot packed into the conceptual drawings: a four-story, office/retail building; three-story townhouses; two, five-level above ground parking garages; a seven-story hotel; two eight-story apartment buildings; and another retail structure that planners said they had drawn in as a possible future location for Bloomingfoods, the longtime cooperative whose current eastside location would be taken by the office/retail building fronting Third Street.
And that’s not all. Planners also had left room for a small plaza next to the retail spaces and a green space measuring 120 feet by 200 feet separating rows of townhomes.
It is evident that the design team had paid attention during its time here this week. Architect Ryan Call pointed out similarities to other recent mixed-use developments and cited principles of the city’s latest Comprehensive Plan, which he called “a beautifully written” planning document.
Call, who like others on the architectural team hails from the San Francisco area, said Bloomington has an opportunity do something that he wished had been done where he lives — to make a conscious decision about how and where future growth will take place, instead of reflexively sprawling ever outward from the city center. That’s what happened here with the last Comprehensive Plan, which embraced in-fill development, connectivity, sustainability and walkability in revitalizing downtown.
There will be more opportunities for the public to provide input on the Kmart site redevelopment, but not an infinite amount. Developers said they intend to present plans to the city by October or November, beginning the process of hearings and approvals that might stretch into early next year.
“We’re putting everything on the table right now,” Call said, urging those attending the final public open house to consider the process “part of the conversation about the future of your community.”
He was not overstating the case. If you’re OK with what has happened downtown — or at Hillside Drive and Henderson Street or on west Third Street with Patterson Pointe, you’ll probably like the concept for the old Kmart property.
If not, you might want to let city officials know. You also can go courb.co/latimer to follow the project and provide comments to Trinitas.
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