IU Health Bloomington, City collaborate on hospital reuse

After Indiana University Health Bloomington Hospitals recent decision to build a new
hospital northeast of town, Amanda Roach, IU Health Bloomingtons Marketing and
Public Relations Manager, knew it was important to involve the community in the
decision for reuse of the current hospital.

The hospital has been here since 1905, she said. It was started by the community.
From the beginning its been a very community oriented organization, and its right in the
middle of town. Its just important to us to keep that community involvement being very
transparent with what were doing both at the new build site but also whats going to
happen with the current site.

The City of Bloomington and IU Health Bloomington have formed the Hospital Site
Reuse Committee to collaborate on the future of the Second and Rogers site. The
committee will help the communitys voice be heard in the decision.

Roach said the committee of 30 is broken down into smaller subcommittees to focus on
more specific tasks and objectives. Each subcommittee is made up of city leaders,
hospital directors, and community volunteers.

That larger group is broken down into smaller subgroups that are looking at different
aspects of reusing that hospital site, she said.

Roach works with the Community Outreach Subcommittee that holds meetings to let
community members voice their opinions and thoughts about the site reuse.

What that group is doing is going to neighborhood association meetings, she said.
Weve held a couple public forums to just let people come in and share their ideas.

Adam Wason, deputy major of the City of Bloomington, also sits on the Community
Outreach Subcommittee.

The Community Outreach Subcommittee is both sharing information about what the
larger committee is doing as well as getting public input in various forms, he said.
Whether its email or public input sessions and compiling that information.

Wason said three other subcommittees make up the large committee. The Site
Reutilization Subcommittee is focusing on making suggestions to the hospital for reuse
options. The Peer Communities Subcommittee is looking at other instances when
hospitals have relocated.

That subcommittee is looking at other examples nationwide of successful projects where

large hospital sites like we have here at Second and Rogers have been successful
reutilized, he said.

The final subcommittee is Facilities Evaluation. Jack Baker, president of the

Bloomington Plan Commission and member of the McDoel Gardens Neighborhood
Association, serves on this subcommittee.

The former engineer said he is working with community architects and other engineers to
evaluate the state of the facilities and compare those to the ideas the community has for
the site.

What were going to do it present our results to the other committees, said Baker.

Baker also said that once the subcommittees come up with practical options for the reuse,
they would then bring in contractors or developers to evaluate the renovations.

As a resident of the McDoel neighborhood, which is adjacent to the current hospital,

Baker also sees how the reuse will affect the community.

We are very concerned, he said. It could be a beautiful thing. It could be awful. We

are vigilant. Thats part of the reason that one of the committees is coming around asking
our neighborhood and other associations what theyd like to see in that building, to get
some idea of what people would be content with.

Roach said ideas for the reuse are still in the information-gathering mode.

Were going to kind of see trends in some of the ideas, she said. I think weve already
seen that. I think once we can kind of put all these ideas into different buckets then we
can kind of get a little bit more focused.

Wason also said compiling all of the communitys ideas and exploring them is the biggest
task right now. Looking at specific ideas will come later in the process.

Were not really exploring one option more than another at this time, he said. Were
really just looking for input and trying to compile all of that input.

Wason is hopeful that the site reuse committee will be helpful in the hospitals decision
for its future and that it will be positive for the community.

Knowing it was a community focused issue, an issue that the community as a whole was
focusing on, we thought it was important to give the community a voice in this situation,
he said. Let them have the opportunity to make suggestions.