The city is preparing for up to 300,000 people to visit during the solar eclipse, talks are underway about the future of Kirkwood Avenue, and are the visual arts being forgotten about in city budgets.
In this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Bloomington Mayor Kerry Thomson addresses these issues and more during a visit to 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: Developers want to bring about 4,200 homes, commercial space to undeveloped land on Bloomington's southwest side called Summit District. Nearby residents are upset about traffic, infrastructure, one resident described it like putting another city in her backyard. How do you move forward on a big plan like this?
Thomson: Housing is critical, not just to Bloomington, but to our country right now. We're really challenged with housing. And this is the last significant tract of developable land in the city of Bloomington right now. So, yes, it's a very large development, and that's why we have not been rushing with it. It's been under discussions for more than a year now, even more than that, actually. And there's been a traffic study done, we want to make sure we get the infrastructure and the traffic, right.
The communication to people in that area, I think, will be, much like other processes that my administration is putting forward, which is that, we will post information as it comes available. We will really strongly encourage the developer and the builders of the project engage with neighbors and keep them as up to date as possible.
I do start my traveling town halls actually this evening. And we intentionally are doing it at Summit Elementary school so that we can answer questions about this development. We'll continue to look for outreach opportunities like that, to engage with it neighborhoods.
Hren: A study this past week from the Kelley School of Business shows population in the state growing, some rural areas are starting to grow. The metro area around Indianapolis is the fastest growing, but the Bloomington metro was one of the three that lost population in 2023. Why is that?
Thomson: It's a great question. I actually haven't seen that data set yet. But what we are seeing in municipalities like ours that has really not been adding a lot of housing for people who work here, is people are commuting it. And so it may be true that we're losing residential population. We've seen a lot of student housing go up in the past eight years, we haven't seen a lot of housing being developed for people who live and work here permanently. And so what that does is it gives people no other choice than to live outside of Bloomington and commute in.
Hren: We have an email from Andrew, he says Bloomington has multiple creative spaces for the performing arts, but none for the visual arts. There's funding and support leads coming to the city from the Indiana Arts Commission. What are you doing to balance the city for the visual arts please?
Thomson: We actually have funding, public art funding, etc. That goes to visual art projects by and large. And our Arts Commission here in Bloomington does, I think a really great job of trying to balance the the myriad of talented artists that we have here and attract other artists to share their gifts. So we do our best to balance things. Obviously performing arts need a venue in order to perform. And so that may be more visible to people in terms of a structure dedicated to arts, but every publicly funded project in the city also comes with public art.
I think the arts are critical to a thriving city. And in fact, the arts are what allow us really to engage at a common level with one another frequently better than anything else does. We can share a performance, we can go to an art show. I think we're all really proud of First Fridays and the many galleries that are engaged with that, and Bloomington really is known as, as an arts town. And we we are looking for ways to incubate artists as well. And, hope to have some plans towards that end soon.
Hren: We've done some reporting about possible conversion of Kirkwood to a bit more of a pedestrian way. But I would like to know a bit more about your thoughts on what you'd like to see Kirkwood Avenue become.
Thomson: I think that many of us have really enjoyed the outdoor dining on Kirkwood. And I think there's a real vibrancy about our city, when we have that happening. It's a way that people are coming together and experiencing one another in ways that we don't if everybody's inside dining. We do need to look at how accessible things are for our patrons who have limited mobility, and emergency services.
I know that there was some reporting about permanently closing Kirkwood, to my knowledge that hasn't been discussed, what has been discussed is a longer term seasonal partial closure of Kirkwood, so that we can get better infrastructure for hosting that summer outdoor dining.
Read more: Thomson hears residents’ concerns, priorities at first traveling town hall
Hren: Any other special announcements we should know about?
Thomson: We are excited that Anna Harris has agreed to serve. (CLARIFICATION: Mayor Thomson misspoke, Anna's last name is Killion-Hanson.) I'll be appointing her as the Director of Housing and Neighborhood Development. She has been serving in an interim role. She comes from a long line of housing providers, and she has vast real estate and housing development experience as well as lots of experience with HUD. So we're looking forward to getting a housing plan together under Anna's leadership. That is one of my campaign promises that we would actually take the studies off the shelf and develop a plan that will be part of next year's work to launch a housing plan that is comprehensive and serves all levels of housing.
