A new massive housing development that could go a long way towards addressing the regional housing shortage is coming to Bloomington’s west side supplying 700 to 800 housing units.
A business group called Bloomington 77 has received approval to move forward with the 77-acre project on the north side of Market Street.
Bloomington’s city council approved an annexation agreement with Bloomington 77 on July 24. Bloomington 77 asked for no exemptions or variations to applicable codes.
The development is expected to include multiple family residential dwelling units, including apartments and townhomes, with an associated community center and 114,000 square feet of commercial uses. A running and biking trail will be provided in what is described as an overall walkable community.
“We have been hearing over the last few weeks how many (housing) units we are short; 7,000, 8000, something like that units. This project alone represents 10 % of that number,” said Councilmember Mollie Ward.
In October 2022, Bloomington-Normal Economic Development Council CEO Patrick Hoban stated our area may need 8,000 more homes by 2030 as a result of the 6,000 jobs Rivian added to our community during 2021 and 2022.
Hoban said the last full study of housing needs published in May 2022 forecast a need for over 4,000 homes. But that study was based on 2020 data and it did not include the 6,000 jobs created by Rivian.
In March 2023 Rivian reported it had 7,400 employees. If 6,000 employees created a need for an additional 4,000 housing units one can easily forecast that another 1,400 employees could create a demand for another 1,000 units. That would mean we are currently looking at a need for 9,000 units.
Councilmember Tom Crumpler questioned whether or not the development group could accomplish this large undertaking.
“I wonder if this developer has completed other projects similar in scope in the last few years either in Bloomington or central Illinois and if they might be able to highlight any of these for us,” asked Crumpler.
William Koffie Jr. responded for Bloomington 77 and said the organization was created recently for the affordable housing crisis facing America.
“But we have a team full of people with the highest expertise who have been doing this for the past 35 to 50 years,” said Koffie.
Koffee shared that they work with Consoliated Construction Corporation that does $300 to $400 million of work each year.
“The only concern I have is that I am not a fan of adding infrastructure, which is going to be required with annexation,” said Council member Donna Boelen.”I know that you are going to be paying for bringing in the infrastructure but over the long run the city will have to maintain it and to be honest we are having trouble maintaining what we have.”
Neil Finlen of the Farnsworth Group responded for the developer.
“We needed to look at what the tap on fees would be, what costs would be involved that would be seen by the city. And when you add it all up the pay pack to the city is in excess of $1.4 million,” said Finlen.
The Bloomington City Council approved the annexation agreement with a vote of seven to one with Boelen being the dissenting vote.
