The Bloomington Plan Commission approved a new 1,143-bedroom student housing development called Bloomington Hub II during its meeting April 15. The construction of this new development involves the demolition of several single and multi-family units in the North Walnut area near the stadium.
National student housing developer Core Spaces, which manages student apartment complexes including the Verve and the Standard, proposed the plan for Hub II. Last year, the plan commission approved Hub I, a smaller development in the same region. Hub I is scheduled to be completed in 2025.
The site for Hub II is between Lincoln, Washington, 17th and 19th Streets. The development site is within a mixed-use student housing zone, one of three new zones adopted by the city in 2021. At least one of them is classified as affordable housing, District III representative Hopi Stosberg said in an interview Tuesday.
The city allows Core Spaces and other developers to develop large complexes, such as Hub II, if they comply with certain incentives geared toward sustainability and affordability. However, members of the commission have been considering changes to recent ordinances following the development of buildings considerably larger than the suggested limit, Stosberg said.
In addition to the size of the development, developers don’t have to price any of their own units at an affordable rate since they provided a $3,440,000 donation to Bloomington’s affordable housing fund, per the incentive intitative
Demolition of homes in the area is scheduled to begin during the fourth quarter of this year, with the project expected to be completed by 2027, Stosberg said.
Hub II will be another in a long line of expensive student housing developments in Bloomington over the past few years. There is no expected rental cost listed yet for Hub II, but Core Spaces’ two current developments both run between $1,000 and $1,600 per month. Property websites such as Redfin place Bloomington’s average rent at around $1,500 per month.
The 2022 US census estimated a 31.1% poverty rate in Bloomington. This number is likely skewed by the large student population in Bloomington, who typically have less disposable income and lower-paying jobs on average.
As an alternative to the stream of high-end developments, the city has begun efforts to develop more affordable housing. The most ambitious of these is the Hopewell initiative, an 800-plus unit affordable housing project located at the site of the former IU Health Hospital on West Second Street.
Stosberg also said she was optimistic about the new student housing developments, noting that it’s important for a town with such a high student population to put an emphasis on housing geared toward them.
“It’s a better use of space over there to have this one unit. It is a good place to have more students living,” she said. “We just need other developments that are gearing toward another population set.”
