Work starts to transform old Bloomington hospital site into affordable housing

By: Taj Simmons

BLOOMINGTON — The former Bloomington Hospital has waited for its prescription after the last patients were moved out in late 2021. The patience is paying off since dirt is now moving on the property.

The site of the hospital, now known as the Hopewell neighborhood, could feature as many as 175 new affordable housing units in its first phase. Hopewell's initial project to renovate the historic administration into housing could open by next summer.

"I know we need some affordable housing," said Bloomington resident Ron Maines, who was bicycling past Hopewell on the nearby B-Line trail. "In a college town, sometimes prices are a little out of hand for the average folks to be able to live."

Before the new housing can go up, contractors have to go down into the ground for infrastructure improvements.

"We're adding a new storm structure system and water lines down the future Jackson Street," said city engineer Zac Rogers. "Being in Bloomington, we have a lot of limestone, too. We have the storm crew hammering out rock right now."

The infrastructure work will also include adding a protected bike lane on West 2nd Street to connect the B-Line Trail with Bloomfield Road, which Maines is enthusiastic to ride when it is built.

"There's really not a safe route when you want to go from downtown and head west so that would be spectacular," Maines said.

The work will result in short road closures around the construction site throughout the fall, including:

Closing West 2nd Street between the B-Line Trail and Rogers Street between Sept. 22 and Oct. 8
Closing the intersection of West 2nd Street and Rogers Street on Oct. 8 and Oct. 9
Closing West 1st Street south of the former hospital site in early October

Maines said the orange cones and construction are a welcome sight for a place that means so much to him.

"I worked in HR here and my wife worked in the radiology department," Maines said. "As an old-timer, it was hard to see the hospital come down, but it was falling behind the times and to see that land cleared and to finally start to see some action, that's a great thing."