Mayor's race: Why does Bloomington struggle to attract mid-sized businesses?

Cook Group President Pete Yonkman said business attraction in Bloomington is hampered by factors including lack of housing, lack of ready-to-move-in spaces and “lack of clarity around how to enter into an economic development relationship with our community.”

Yonkman made the comments Wednesday morning after a forum in which he moderated a debate between the three candidates running for the Democratic nomination for mayor of Bloomington.

Current Mayor John Hamilton is not running for re-election. The three potential successors are Donald Griffin Jr., who owns a Bloomington realty business; Susan Sandberg, a city council member; and Kerry Thomson, former CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County. Early voting has begun. Primary election day is May 2.

Yonkman has spoken in public meetings about the need for more housing in the community. His employer, Cook Group, announced about a year ago that it is building 300 homes in Owen, Orange and Lawrence counties and plans to sell many of them to its employees at cost, or for less than $200,000.

Workforce housing: Cook to build 300 homes in Owen, Orange, Lawrence counties; sales price below $200,000

During Wednesday’s forum, which was organized by the Bloomington Economic Development Corp. and held at the Monroe County Convention Center, Yonkman asked the three candidates to weigh in on why the community appears to be struggling to attract mid-sized companies.

Griffin Jr.: Bloomington seeing growth from big, small employers

Griffin Jr., a former deputy mayor under Hamilton, pushed back a bit against the question. He said Bloomington has largely focused on attracting smaller companies, such as those at the Dimension Mill and supporting growth of larger, existing employers, including Cook and Catalent.

“And I think we’ve actually done a great job of that,” he said.

Catalent about a year ago committed to investing another $350 million in Bloomington and creating 1,000 new jobs.

Growth: Catalent commits to investing $350M in its Bloomington facility, creating 1,000 new jobs

Griffin Jr. said he suspects some companies do not relocate to Bloomington because of a lack of proximity to transportation infrastructure, which partially has been addressed by Interstate 69. However, he said, to foster additional growth, the community also should look into expanding its airport.

Sandberg: City carefully guarding available land

Sandberg said during her time on the city council, she has established good relationships with the chamber of commerce and the BEDC to make sure the city creates the proper environment for businesses to grow.

Those relationships, she said, are crucial to enabling the private sector to invest in Bloomington.

Sandberg said the council has been careful to guard available land.

“The reason why the city council did reject the Fullerton property for a possible jail site is because that was zoned … to be an employer attractor," she said. "And we didn’t want to change that.”

Thomson: City has not been ready for new investment

Thomson blamed slow business growth on lack of housing and lack of preparation.

“I don’t know how somebody would bring in 50 new employees here. They don’t have a place to live,” she said.

And while she said she is glad to see former Bloomington Mayor John Fernandez involved with the Trades District Tech Center to help early-stage companies, the community has not properly prepared for the potential arrival of new businesses.

Tech center: Another multi-million dollar building is planned for downtown. What you need to know.

“Frankly, we heard that (the tech center site) was shovel ready six years ago, and it’s been a really nice lawn to mow,” Thomson said.

Bloomington can attract companies under the right conditions, she said, “but frankly I don’t think we’ve been ready for them.”

BEDC: Land, workforce, housing all factors in location decisions

Jennifer Pearl, president of the BEDC, said businesses look at multiple aspects when they make expansion or location decisions. They include:

• Land, including availability, cost and complexity of the regulatory process.

• Labor, including availability, qualifications and cost.

• Housing, including availability and affordability at all levels.

“Housing is a big one,” she said, and it’s related to the availability of the workforce.

BEDC says on its website that part of the housing problem stems from a lack of building, especially of single-family units.

Between 2016 and 2020, the number of building permits issued for single-family homes was 234 lower — per year — than the annual average for the prior 25 years. Even the annual average number of permits issued for duplexes and fourplexes was lower between 2016 and 2020 than between 1991 and 2015. Only the number of larger complexes, with at least five units, increased.

“This means that over the 5 years from 2016 to 2020, there were a total of 1,170 fewer single-family homes permitted than in a typical 5-year period,” the BEDC wrote.

And, the organization said, other communities are taking advantage by expediting their permitting processes: “Even though Morgan County has half the number of residents as Monroe County, Morgan County had more single-family building permits from 2019 to 2021.”

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Beyond more traffic and greenhouse gas emissions from commuters, having people live outside the communities where they work reduces income tax collection for the employment hub. In Indiana, people pay income taxes where they live, which means Bloomington and Monroe County forgo income taxes for each commuter.

Pearl warned, though, business leaders look at many other factors, including the quality of the local innovation ecosystem, public safety and access to health care and child care.

The BEDC explores housing, workforce development and other topics on its website in its Economic Vitality Project, which aims, among other things, to identify “challenges and opportunities we can tackle together as a community.”

Hamilton administration: Organic growth 'more durable ... efficient'

Alex Crowley, director of the city's economic and sustainable development department, said while business attraction is important, "we should not judge ourselves entirely on that metric."

"Pete's right that we haven't seen a lot of business attraction in the past decade or so, with some notable exceptions (e.g., Catalent on the large scale, Ateois on the smaller scale)," Crowley said via email. "That 50-100 employee size is a really good potential target for us because we could absorb that size more easily within our workforce constraints.

"Having said that," he said, "it's important to realize that business attraction should be a relatively smaller subset of job growth activities — growth from existing or newly formed, organic businesses is a better, more durable and efficient approach.  Bloomington has been heavily focused on developing and growing businesses organically, including via the Mill and throughout the community, which I believe is a good strategy. While it doesn't lend itself to the same headlines as attraction does, it is nonetheless a good strategy.

"Furthermore, attracting businesses at its core depends upon building quality of place, something Bloomington has done well over the years," Crowley said. "A business won't move to a community if they don't believe they can attract and retain workforce in that community. Our parks, arts, quality of life, are laying the groundwork for attraction and retention."

Boris Ladwig can be reached at bladwig@heraldt.com.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Yonkman asks Bloomington mayor candidates about attracting business