By: Diane Benjamin
http://bloomingtonil.iqm2.com/Citizens/FileOpen.aspx?Type=1&ID=1166&Inline=True
Bloomington has elevated water storage that has never been used: https://blnnews.com/2015/08/04/more-ineptness/
Maybe in December it can at least be decorated for Christmas. It stands as a monument to incompetency by the designer/engineer and the failure of City officials to hold whoever did it accountable.
Monday night the Council will approve just the $1,497,400 fee estimate. Obviously the scope of the project will take YEARS, will the engineering/design still be of use when the City finally gets around to all the projects?
PDF page 580:
Note: I-55 Tank Farm, which is close to the never used water tower, needs more storage tanks.
Flip to PDF page 597. The CII East building has looked like a disaster for years. The documentation claims an agreement has been reached with 102 East, LLC. The owner of the building is Devyn Group, aka David Bentley. Bentley was a Renner lunch buddy (until he lost his P-Card) who also sued Bloomington over TIF money: https://blnnews.com/2019/04/10/cii-east-then-and-now/
The agreement claims Bentley is selling the building to 102 South East LLC. They will invest at least $4 million to build 8 apartments, 4 short term rental apartments, and office space on the main floor. (Have they seen all the empty space downtown now?)
Bloomington will waive the 6% short term rental tax and provide 20 parking spaces in the Lincoln Garage for 20 years. In addition District 87 and the City must agree to rebate property taxes while Bloomington pays D87 $4000 per student who lives in the building.
The documentation is convoluted and contradictory. In another section the short term rental taxes and parking spaces are for 15 years, not 20.
What happened to the old State Farm building downtown? Wasn’t part of it supposed to be housing?
Anyway, the discussion will either be interesting or there won’t be any since everyone will be happy to lose an eyesore downtown. (one of many)
The Secretary of State shows two people as managers of the LLC:
David Bentley?🤔 I will never understand why they defaced the building while it stands empty. Why?
FYI: Robbie Osenga is owner of Cybernautic, a web developer in Bloomington. Andy Kaufman is president of Catalyst Construction in Bloomington.
I would expect this to be a pretty good plan. At least its local developers investing where they live. While I don’t like TIF districts, this building was already in a TIF district before they got involved.
gotta give bentley credit, for a shady operator he sure figured out how to game the system
My gawd this city wastes a lot of money. Constantly. Seems no council understands much of anything when it comes to actually serving the citizens needs. Pathetic! The mayors, Markowitz, Stockton, especially Renner and now Mboka. Idiots.
On one website a person living in an apartment asked, “where do I plug in my EV”? My answer an extremely long extension cord from your apartment. Which might be better so it doesn’t burn in a shared garage.
I was in Panera’s a week or so ago and a woman was browsing Willow looking at a condo on Rust Rd. She told me she was living in the Ensenberger building and the taxes were horrible. She could get the Rust Rd. condo with about the same sq. ft. and taxes were way less.
Every time I drive past the former State Farm building I see the space for lease signage and I LMAO. I haven’t been past the high end apartment building down the street from the empty Pantagraph building lately to see if any were occupied. Why would you want to live there?
Why the city of BL can’t condemn and force those owners to tear those eye sore buildings down is beyond me. What was it 20 yrs ago the owner of a house around Franklin Park converting it to apartments the city was all over that guy, Randall ???.
Answer to your charging question will be addressed in the next story, as soon as I finish it.
dontyoudare.info just a heads up in regards to the WHO power grab to destroy U.S. sovereignty.
CII will be a carbon copy of the ENSENBERGER building one big white elephant