What's being built on Liberty Drive near Bloomington Menards?
A company that owns several auto dealerships on the city’s west side plans to build another one on Liberty Drive, near Goodwill and Menards.
Autovest II plans to construct a Kia Motors dealership on a 9-acre site at 701 S. Liberty St., according to local planning officials. Filings with the county show the name of the business will be Community Kia of Bloomington. The company already operates a Kia dealership on South Walnut Street.
Construction crews have begun moving earth on the Liberty Drive site. Local planning documents indicate the construction is projected to last about one year.
Preliminary designs filed with the Monroe County Planning Department show a 21,000-square foot building with another 6,300-square-foot building planned for the future, said Anne Crecelius, a planner with the local planning department.
Crecelius said customers would be able to access the site via two entrances/exits on the property’s west side, along Liberty Drive.
According to the Indiana Secretary of State’s Office, Autovest II was created in 2016. Documents filed in 2022 list Thomas C. Martin as the business’ governing person. Documents filed the the planning department confirm the owner as Tom Martin.
Autovest II also owns the Ford, Nissan and Chrysler dealerships on South Walnut Street. A phone message left at the Ford dealership was not returned immediately.
The company was represented before the Monroe County Plan Commission by Bloomington engineering firm Bynum Fanyo & Associates, which also could not be reached.
Preliminary plans show the project also includes a 40,000-square-foot building on the property’s northwest side, on a second parcel that is flag-shaped and wraps around Yasui Seiki/MIRWEC Coating on the east and north sides. Crecelius said that building would be a separate business with access via a narrow strip of land north of the MIRWEC site. The warehouse would include spaces for rent by businesses — not for personal storage.
The site is part of the Whitehall Business Park which was created by the city of Bloomington in the 1970s, Crecelius said in a plan commission meeting.
Boris Ladwig can be reached at bladwig@heraldt.com.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Construction begins on Liberty Drive for new car dealership
