A developer’s variance request for a proposed five-story condominium building with a restaurant on Kirkwood Avenue will be heard by the Bloomington Board of Zoning Appeals later this month.
That’s because the board canceled its July 25 meeting, when it was scheduled to hear the request.
The 67,000-square-foot building is proposed by developer Clearpath Services. It would replace a parking lot west of the CVS Pharmacy on the corner of Kirkwood and Washington Street.
Clearpath is asking the board to grant a height variance, or an exception from existing rules which would typically cap the building’s height at 54 feet. The building is planned to be 70.5 feet tall. It will include 14 condos.
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The building also would contain basement-level parking for residents, and some ground-level spaces for restaurant patrons.
Clearpath will partner with Uptown Café owners Michael and Galen Cassady on a ground-level restaurant with outdoor seating and a second-floor bar if the project is approved.
In a letter to the board, Clearpath President Randy Lloyd wrote the Bloomington Plan Commission first heard the proposal in 2018. Clearpath received the commission’s approval to begin construction. That process was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and negotiations with Duke Energy over the relocation of power lines and poles in adjacent alleys.
Clearpath submitted the project for re-approval in 2022 but needs the board to approve two variances due to changes in the city’s Unified Development Ordinance, according to the letter.
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In 2022, the board denied a separate request from Clearpath to be exempt from a rule that at least 50 percent of the ground floor’s square footage be used for non-residential and non-parking uses. This was meant to allow Clearpath to install more ground-level parking.
Because Clearpath is planning a restaurant on the ground floor and underground parking, it is no longer requesting this.
A city staff report recommends approving the height variance, as doing so will not “be injurious to the public health, safety, morals, or general welfare of the community,” nor will it “affect the use and value of the area adjacent to the property in a substantially adverse manner.”
