In Bloomington, one of Indiana’s most expensive housing markets, a two-bedroom downtown apartment for under $1,000 seems like a fairy tale.
But when Hannah Odom and her dad lost their home seven years ago, they found that improbable spot at Seminary Pointe.
“It was like a dream come true,” Odom said. “It was like right next to the B-Line and right next to campus.”
The block at Second Street and College Avenue contains at least 25 apartments for as little as $400, as well as a nonprofit, My Sister’s Closet, and successful local businesses – Friendly Beasts Cider Bar, Bluetip Billiards and Jeff’s Warehouse. In other words, it’s the kind of development the city says it wants to see.
Rent is low because these buildings are owned by the county. That’s how residents and business owners like Jeff Scofield at Jeff’s Warehouse have kept a foothold in Bloomington’s core. He’s still renting the three-story used furniture store at 2010 prices.
“It's not only a good deal, it's almost ridiculous,” Scofield said.
But that bargain comes with a catch.
“They've never raised the rent, and the rent has been very reasonable, because for the last 11 years, every year, they didn't know if it was going to be torn down,” Scofield said.
The county bought the property in 2010 with funds from an innkeeper’s tax, specifically for expanding the nearby convention center. Now that the expansion is being built, the Capital Improvement Board managing the project is asking for the land.
While some residents have asked for their apartment to be transferred to and managed by a non-profit land trust, County Commissioner Jody Madeira said that is not possible legally.
“We made a promise along with the city when the Capital Improvement Board was formed that we would pledge our properties and our collaboration,” Madeira said. “So when the CIB calls for the property, we have to deliver that property.”
She added that the CIB has so far “done a marvelous job” leading the Convention Center project.
Most renters were told their leases will end on July 7. It prompted strong reactions during public comment at county meetings from renters such as Friendly Beasts co-owner Toby Foster.
“I just kind of wanted to express my frustration with how that all happened,” he said at a March commissioners meeting. “Reaching out to people, I was told that it would probably be okay to stay until the end of the year and then just a couple weeks after that got this email at 5:15 p.m. on a Friday, so there was nothing we could do over the weekend.”
But although the CIB asked the county to hand over properties, it hasn’t decided what it will do with them.
Initially, county and city leaders planned for that area to become part of a convention center campus. But as plans moved in fits and starts over 15 years, the focus of the project moved north. Planners chose a spot several blocks north for the expanded center and decided the former Bunger & Robertson property on Third Street is a better site for a new hotel.
John Whikehart, President of Monroe County Capital Improvement Board of Managers, explained the disadvantages of building a hotel on Second Street.
“When you think about the south, that far end, you're moving further away from connectivity to the restaurants, to the galleries, to the performance spaces,” he said.
Still, the handover and lease terminations are set. Odom said not knowing what comes after she leaves is part of her frustration.
“We keep wanting to know if this is going to be a parking lot or a parking garage, and they will not tell us,” she said.
Some members of the city council and the CIB have proposed a solution.
Since 2024, the mayor’s office has no longer wanted to donate the Bunger & Robertson property to a hotel developer, hoping to recoup the $7 million the last administration spent acquiring it. But it’s not clear who’s expected to pay. That’s where the land comes in.
“Would they exchange those south parcels for the Bunger Robertson property, which would allow us then to use the Bunger Robertson property for the hotel development?” Whikehart asked.
Mayor Kerry Thomson answered directly in an interview last week: “We're not interested in swapping land.”
She added that the city is “already in a process with that College Square property,” as City Hall refers to the spot on Third and College. Thomson said she wants to speak fondly of her partners at the county and CIB.
“The county is dealing with that southern property as they will,” she said. “And just to be fair, that property, when it was acquired by the county, it has been known that it would be part of this convention center deal for a long, long time.”
Thomson ran on affordable housing, but the city isn’t interested in those apartments either.
“When we talk about affordable housing, I think it's really important that we clarify that people need to live in decent, affordable housing,” she explained. “There is a difference between just a roof over your head and something that's really adequate.”
Seminary Pointe apartments have structural issues. They lost heat last winter, and renters cope with a slew of ongoing problems.
Odom loves the building’s historic charm and high ceilings but admits that living there comes with inconveniences.
“Every time it rains, my dad's bedroom has one or two holes in the ceiling, so tons of water will get on his bed,” Odom said. She added that the bathtub creaks when she gets in, the siding blows off in heavy winds and the air conditioner leaks in the summer.
“I know they are trying to fix things,” Odom said. “But they don't usually come in with a maintenance man and offer to fix things as they come. There's just so many little issues I have to deal with.”
Madeira thinks the site could one day have more suitable affordable housing.
“I would like to see both the hotel be built and of course those residents get to stay where they are,” she said. “But on those properties, we can do more than 25 units, and those 25 units in particular, they really need to be rehabilitated.”
Whikehart said it’s not optimal, but if the city won’t agree to a land exchange, the CIB may offer that land to a hotel developer.
“The incentive we have is land for you to build on,” he said. “We don't have any other incentives.”
With the moveout date approaching and no specific plan for the land, renters prepare for what feels like the inevitable.
At Jeff’s Warehouse, the volume of antique furniture and art to move in the coming months feels daunting. The cost of rent in Bloomington means he’s unlikely to find another space he can afford.
“I mean, look at all this stuff,” Scofield said. “When you are forced to retirement, I'm going to have to liquidate a lot of it. There's a lot of merchandise here.”
Odom said she’s going to miss Seminary Pointe and what it represents for the city.
“It really disheartens me how many housing options in Bloomington are catered towards students, so they're extremely expensive, or they're just things on the outskirts of town run by like slum lords,” she said.
Local government and rental businesses have been preparing assistance for tenants to relocate. The Monroe County Apartment Association, in cooperation with Brawley and Granite Property Management Companies, said it will contact residents about available units in a similar price range, waiving application fees and deferring security deposits and first month’s rent.
Thomson said the department of Housing and Neighborhood Development offers resources and assistance for renters.
The county’s long custodianship of the property and its cancellation of their leases leave some tenants with complicated emotions.
“It's a double-edged sword,” Scofield said. “I hate to see this leave, and I hate to see it leave for Bloomington, but without them we wouldn't have been here.”
