By: Diane Benjamin

Decades of spending money downtown have failed to transform it from a place of lawyers by day and revelers by night. Bloomington’s new goal is to reposition downtown as the entertainment capital of Central Illinois (That was stated at a June meeting: https://blnnews.com/2025/06/17/committee-of-the-whole-recap/)

The pattern of bidding projects “shooting for the stars” is seen way too often. The first bid comes in WAY over what was projected, then the project is re-thought to some affordable amount.

If you think spending $13,179,900 downtown (as a start!) if affordable, tonight is the night. That is down from $18,617,111.

See details here: https://d2kbkoa27fdvtw.cloudfront.net/cityblm/4fbc43cfe2fcbdce6e7abc0567ce36800.pdf

I don’t pretend to understand every word. I do know every government project ends up over budget and every project has the “cut” spending added back in the future.

Stockpiling cash allows the City to not borrow money for this phase. $10,301,270.75 is coming from the General Fund.

The project does include getting rid of lead pipes. Watch the presentation tonight for more details.