Page last updated on November 14, 2022 at 4:44 pm
Each week, Mayor Hamilton and Deputy Mayor Griffin provide video updates on recent news and key initiatives. Access all of the weekly video updates at bloomington.in.gov/videoupdates.
Join Mayor Hamilton and Public Engagement Director Mary Catherine Carmichael as they discuss a path forward for a convention center expansion.
Transcript
John Hamilton:
Hi, it's Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton; again, thanks for joining us. We are going to talk about the convention center today with my colleague, Mary Catherine-Carmichael. Thanks for being with us.
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
Happy to be here.
John Hamilton:
So there's a lot of talk about this. Maybe we could start by saying, let's imagine you don't know much about the convention center.
You haven't been following this.
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
Okay.
John Hamilton:
What should people know about what's going on with it?
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
So we have an existing convention center, and it's great except for the fact that it's just not big enough.
John Hamilton:
Okay.
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
So it hasn't been big enough since almost the moment the doors opened. So as long as 30 years ago, other city leaders that preceded us started planning for an expansion. So since you've been Mayor, we've been working on this for six years; we had a little timeout thanks to the COVID situation. But we're back at it, and we're really excited because we think we have a great path forward.
John Hamilton:
So we think it's a good thing for the city to help downtown. We have a lot of traffic on the weekends, but we have some room during the weekday. So this would help really support a lot of people. What makes us ready now? What's going to happen next, do you think?
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
So we have everything we need. If you were making a cake, we would have all the ingredients needed for the recipe. We have land, we have funding, and we have some plans. We're going to take another look at those, we haven't reviewed those for a while, and we've got folks that are willing to work with us on this. We can't do it alone.
John Hamilton:
So we tried over that period of six years to get some different approaches, which didn't work. A couple of different approaches. The new approach, which involves maybe a 501c3 and that kind of thing, some people are saying, "Well, is the city just doing this alone?" But can you tell us who we work with and how this would work?
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
Right. There's absolutely no way we could accomplish this alone. Actually, it's not even one of the ingredients you could choose from. So we've got the FABTAC, which is the Food and Beverage Tax Advisory Commission, that's a mouthful. They decide appropriate use of the FAB, the food and beverage tax.
John Hamilton:
Okay. And that's a mix city-county thing, evenly, right? That committee?
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
Yeah. We've got our city council. They have to say, "yes, we think this is a good idea. You can go forward." The county council also has to say, "Yes, this is a good thing."
John Hamilton:
Because they voted for the taxes to begin with.
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
Yes.
John Hamilton:
So the food and beverage tax, which pays for this.
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
That's right. And then the CVC, which is the Convention and Visitors Commission, I have to get all these right. There are a lot of acronyms involved in all this, but they're the ones that control the Inkeeper's Tax, and that would be a steady stream of funding that we'd like to share with the existing convention center; we want to work closely in conjunction with them.
John Hamilton:
So all those entities have to work together, will work together to build the new expansion.
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
That's right.
John Hamilton:
And is it going to be run together or separately or how would it be operated, do you think?
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
Ideally, yeah. I mean, it would be foolish to duplicate efforts along those lines, and they should be marketed together and run by the same people. And we think the folks who are doing it now are doing a great job, and we'd love it if they would do the same kind of work that they're doing for the existing convention center for an expanded facility.
John Hamilton:
Thanks for the update. I appreciate it.
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
My pleasure.
John Hamilton:
We're hopeful, optimistic, and pleased that there's a really good path forward with a lot of people at the table. We've been working at this for a long time. We promised to use the food and beverage tax to build a new convention center expansion. So we're ready to go. Plenty more detail and plenty more conversations to happen, but we just wanted to give you that update. Thank you, Mary Catherine, for that.
Mary Catherine Carmichael:
Thank you, Mayor.
John Hamilton:
And we'll be in touch again.