City officials are moving forward on combing fire and police headquarters at city hall, retail spaces at Fourth Street Garage are still vacant, and the mayor's message to state legislators on crafting abortion legislation.
In this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton addresses these issues and more during an interview Tuesday at City Hall. Listen to the full conversation with Indiana Newsdesk anchor Joe Hren by clicking on the play button above, or read some of the questions and answers below. A portion of this segment airs 6:45 and 8:45 a.m. Wednesday on WFIU. Here are some highlights.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Hren: The city is looking to bring the fire and police administration to Showers Plaza at city hall. CFC properties agreed to sell their portion of this building to the city. How did this come to be?
Hamilton: The floods last year really damaged our police headquarters and our fire downtown station, have us looking for options. We've been long interested in the in Showers Building as a place for continued City Hall presence over the decades to come, our city grows, our government grows.
But in particular, the police headquarters, which is full, it needs a better place to be. It's an old building they're in, it's been damaged by flood. They are growing we so we started looking at a place for police headquarters, when we discussed with CFC, that was a great option to think about bringing them right into City Hall.
So we have some due diligence to do - we have an accepted offer to buy the building at about $9 million. And that's a good price for the square footage that we can get. But we have to make sure it can work as a police station. In addition, we can bring the Fire Administration - now it's not a fire station, it's not the the engines and all running out of here. But it's all the administrators for fire. And that would really be helpful to have all that public safety in one space.
Hren: The police department has all those vehicles. And when you look at Google Maps, you can take a look at the back of City Hall, there's not really much parking there.
Hamilton: Well, there's parking for the commercial space. But of course, we have a garage next to the Trades District. So that will be one of the things we'll look at, though in the due diligence process just to make sure this can work. Police stations are not just your everyday office buildings, either. They have to have substantial security and, spaces that are protected for some of their services and materials.
Hren: It creates an opportunity with City Hall to do some reorganization and relocation with public safety?
Hamilton: Absolutely, we would look at connecting the two halves, if you will, or the two thirds of the building. We've actually talked about that with county too, because sometimes having a doorway in between would be helpful, but almost certainly, it would involve opening up the two parts of the building to connect them - could be connected by council chambers on both floors, different ways. We'll look at that.
Hren: I know some people were a little bit upset, they just moved into CFC. And now they realize they may have to move. Will the city help them relocate?
Hamilton: Absolutely. Well, a couple things, one, any leases, they have the right to be there. But second, we won't need all that space. Even if we do move everything from the police and the fire in there, there will be commercial space still available. So we'll be working with all the tenants over the months and years if this goes forward to figure out how to take care of their interests as well.
Hren: Just thinking about retail spaces and leases, Fourth Street Garage retail space is still empty. Any word on interest in there?
Hamilton: We're still marketing it, Joe, you're right. Really since the pandemic, a lot of office and retail space is different. I was talking to somebody in Chicago who said they had I think they said 17 million square feet of empty office space in downtown Chicago. So we're a small city, we don't have that same numbers, but we have impact and we're part of that. We're going to continue to work to try to find ways that people can use that space well, but the pandemic shifted that quite a bit for a lot of us.
Hren: What about garage parking? It's been open now for a while, is it being used for public using it at night and weekends and retail rental during the day?
Hamilton: I haven't seen the exact numbers on it. Yes it's used - I think I seen about half of the spaces are leased in the long term by by workers, particularly in the Fountain Square Mall. It's of course used for different kinds of events. I do think the pandemic and the working patterns, there's still lots of people who are working from home part time, some of the time maybe all the time that's changing and we're continuing to look at the parking needs downtown.
I will say from the long haul, having parking structures available that can replace surface parking is a good thing. It lets us reuse surface space for better uses for housing or or businesses, restaurants, etc. So I'm really glad that we have that basic infrastructure. And it lets us continue to have to evaluate how much surface space we need both us publicly and in the private sector.
Hren: Legislators are going to convene shortly about crafting abortion legislation, taxpayer refunds for the state surplus. What's your message to state legislators as they convene?
Hamilton: Well, first on the fiscal side, that $6 billion surplus, that's way too much - they should be investing more in public education and returning money to those of us who need it, which is really important. But fundamentally, Joe, this is a very scary time.
READ MORE: More Indiana abortion restrictions likely to be reinstated
This is the first time in American history 200 plus years that we've had a Supreme Court take away a fundamental right, like they did when they overturned Roe v. Wade. I think that was extraordinarily wrong and damaging to our country. The outlook is grim, that our state seems poised to take away what most Indiana residents want. Most Hoosiers want to keep government out of our bedrooms and out of our private lives, out of our personal decisions.
But it looks very much like the legislature may double down and make a bunch of really dangerous decisions. From my perspective that Bloomington is home to Indiana University and 10s of 1000s of young women, some of whom will have unintended pregnancies and the idea that they would be forced by the state legislature by the government to bear a child that they do not want is abysmal.
I'm going up there to make our voices heard - a bunch of us from Bloomington if people want to join there's a bus and others going up on Monday the 25th. I hope our legislators listen to reason. Let these personal decisions be personal.
