This is a countdown of the top 10 stories of 2022 written about by Cat Petersen and/or Kevin Woodard. These are stories in the sense of “stories we followed.” Each of these “stories” had multiple stories written about them and published on our web site.
Number 9. Housing
The Bloomington Normal Housing Market has been one of the hottest real estate markets in the country all year long. We wrote our first story of the year on the subject in March. McLean County’s population continued to grow as Rivian continued to hire. At the same time new construction prices increased because of material cost.
In April Normal moved forward with the Trail East and Trail West developments in uptown. That development is expected to provide housing in the form of high end apartments in that area.
The Bloomington City Council approved a development agreement with owners of the CII East building at 102 East St., in May. The building will provide apartments and short term rental units. Also that month Normal moved forward with plans for Uptown South which will also provide high income rental housing.
In June we dug into the housing shortage a little deeper using the Bloomington-Normal Economic Development Council’s Regional Housing Market Analysis that was released in April.
According to the analysis, “There are just under 6,800 renter households that could afford rents of around $1,500 or higher, yet there are only around 1,600 rental units at these price points indicating that these households have to seek out alternative options, which then limits the supply for low and moderate-income renter.”
The analysis also stated, “Based on projected growth in the region, there is net demand for around 4,300 to 4,800 net new housing units.”
In August and September plans for a proposed subdivision in our area made headlines on its own for several weeks. We will put that story aside for now and discuss it later when it appears higher up in our top 10 by its name.
Shelbourne Apartments Development Approved By Normal Planning Commission
Bloomington approved a plat for Fox Creek Country Club Subdivision in September. It was for the last phase of the subdivision that has been in development and construction for the past 28 years. Also that month, Normal approved zoning for multifamily housing on the southeast corner of N. Parkside Rd. and W. Raab Rd.
November was full of housing news. First, we learned that our area may need 8000 more homes by 2030 as a result of the 6,000 jobs Rivian added to our community during the last two years. Bloomington-Normal Economic Development Council CEO Patrick Hoban told us the analysis released in April was based on 2020 data and it did not include those jobs.
Second the preferred plan for Uptown South was revealed. The concept seeks largely to fulfill the high demand for housing in the Bloomington Normal Area by providing 240 apartments.
And third, Normal took actions in November that will allow the owner of Shelbourne Apartments to immediately go to work on rehabbing those units and building a subdivision on the unoccupied parts of that property.
