On Wednesday morning, the Chairman of Connect Transit announced they are hoping to add a new site in Downtown Bloomington.
The Connect Transit Board is looking at three properties for a potential site, the old Pantagraph property, Market Street parking deck, and the former CII East Bar and Lounge property.
“Over the coming 30 days, the Connect Transit Board of Trustees, with input from our transit staff, the City of Bloomington and numerous other community stakeholders, will carefully consider the advantages and disadvantages associated with all three sites,” Chairman of Connect Transit Ryan Whitehouse said.
Bloomington Mayor Tari Renner has been a vocal advocate and supporter of the progress and growth of Connect Transit. In 2015, Bloomington’s Connect Transit was rated one of the best small metro-system in all of North America by the American Public Transportation Association.
“This is really an exciting process. This is something thats just not going to benefit people who ride Connect Transit, [it] will help us move to a new phase of being a multimodal city for the 21st century,” Renner said. “It’s also a very important anchor in our Downtown.”
The President and CEO of the Bloomington-Normal Economic Development Council Patrick Hoban shared how the new $18 million investment will help create new jobs and will have a return investment of about $30 million.
“We are bringing [the money] back from the state and the feds back home. This is something we all fight for, every community in Illinois trying to get these dollars back. The return on investment is really $29.5 million to our Downtown,” Hoban said.
Connect Transit’s board will convene on Feb. 10 to discuss the advantages and disadvantages about the three potential sites. The new site will be decided at the next board meeting on Feb. 23.
Whitehouse expressed the hope for a groundbreaking ceremony this spring and that the new facility would be complete by the fourth quarter of 2022.
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