Fishers-based Dora Hospitality plans to build a $75 million, 200-room hotel along College Avenue that will primarily serve guests of the Bloomington Convention Center.
While exact details have yet to be worked out, plans call for a five-story, L-shaped, 213,000-square-foot structure along College Avenue, south of the block that includes the convention center and Courtyard by Marriott hotel.
The $71 million convention center is under construction, but tourism officials have said that to maximize the center’s success, it requires a host hotel, as the only connected option, the Courtyard, has only 117 rooms.
Russell Louderback, founder of the Louderback Group, who is partnering with Dora on the hotel, said the project would include a 7,500-square-foot meeting area, ground-floor retail, a 40-seat rooftop bar on the northeast corner, overlooking downtown, a 100-seat full-service restaurant and 200 parking spots, with 100 possibly being under ground.
He said the hotel will be either a Marriott or a Hilton product.
David Rausch, principal architect at Zionesville-based Luminaut, said the hotel also would have a pool and fitness center along the B-Line Trail. He said developers are focusing on pedestrian and bicycle connectivity, and the structure’s exterior will complement the architecture of the existing convention center as well as the new expansion.
Louderback said the partners hope to break ground within 10 months, with completion expected about two years later.
The Monroe County Capital Improvement Board unanimously chose Dora on Wednesday after the board’s hotel evaluation committee recommended the proposal, which officials said exceeded the requirements outlined in the request for proposals.
Dora Hospitality’s first attempt to build a convention center host hotel unraveled earlier this year after more than a year of negotiations, with city and county officials unable to bridge a financing gap and agree on the transfer of city-owned property north of the convention center. The collapse forced the CIB to abandon the original plan and reopen the search for a hotel developer before again selecting Dora.
Dora’s latest proposal uses only a portion of the 6-acre CIB-owned land south of the center, which Rausch said is now their preferred site. That will leave additional land available for future development.
Whikehart said during Wednesday’s meeting that getting to this point had been “quite a journey” that has been “exhaustive and at times exhausting.”
After the meeting, Whikehart said he was excited about the new hotel proposal and said the project could have a “transformational” impact on that part of the city as it would connect the downtown, convention center and new Hopewell neighborhood the city is planning south of Second Street.
He said the project could spark additional development south of the convention center.
Company President Vincent Dora could not be reached immediately Wednesday afternoon, but he has said that as a third-generation hotelier from a family with roots in southern Indiana and many members having attended Indiana University Bloomington, he has wanted to work on a Bloomington hotel for years.
The CIB voted on the hotel proposal despite a request from Bloomington Mayor Kerry Thomson that the vote be delayed for six days. Thomson wrote in an email Tuesday evening that a brief delay was needed so “the public can have confidence that the best decision was made for the best possible outcome of our community.”
Some local officials and community members have, for months, been advocating for a land swap between the CIB and the city — possibly for the former Bunger & Robertson property north of the convention center, the initial hotel site — with the goal of preserving some residential and commercial buildings on the land south of the convention center.
Proponents of the swap have argued that local officials should do their best to keep the tenants in the apartments, because they were some of the most affordable units in the city. A county attorney said last year that some residential tenants were paying as little as $400 a month, though he also said the building, owned by the county at the time, required significant maintenance and repairs.
Commercial tenants on the block include My Sister’s Closet and Friendly Beasts Cider Co., both of which plan to move, and Bluetip Billiards, the future of which is unknown.
However, CIB members argued that Dora’s proposal made a land swap unnecessary because the developer now prefers the southern site, in part because convention goers would not have to cross West Third Street, a busy downtown thoroughfare.
Whikehart said Wednesday that the CIB has no plans to extend the leases of the residential and commercial tenants beyond Aug. 31. He said the CIB is working through the process of obtaining demolition permits for the buildings. What will happen to the part of the 6 acres that won’t be occupied by the hotel has yet to be determined, he said.
Boris Ladwig can be reached at bladwig@heraldt.com.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Here’s what we know about Bloomington’s new downtown hotel plan
Reporting by Boris Ladwig, The Herald-Times / The Herald-Times
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By Boris Ladwig, The Herald-Times | USA TODAY Network
