Open response to County Commissioners regarding jail site

Why I decline the request for support of the Hopewell property as the site of a new jail complex

July 27, 2026

Dear Commissioner Julie Thomas and Commissioner Jody Madeira,

I am writing in response to your request made during the City Council meeting on Wednesday, July 22, 2026, that the Council support a request from the County Commissioners to the Redevelopment Commission (RDC) to use the Hopewell site for a new jail and co-location of affiliated offices. Your request also included a caveat that the County cannot utilize the site if full city plan commission and City Council review is required, since you estimate that would require about nine months’ time which you don’t have.

First, let me say how surprised I was by this request. You said that such a request was made in 2022-23, at which time I was serving on the City Council and was involved in the jail issue by attending meetings of the Community Justice Response Committee (as a member of the public) and the Justice Fiscal Advisory Committee (as a committee member). I do not recall, nor can I find evidence for, an official request to the City Council or the RDC for use of the Hopewell site for a new jail. The option was discussed at a City Council work session on August 11, 2023, but no formal request was made. Furthermore, a joint County Commissioners’ meeting with the County Council on August 29, 2023 was reported in the B-Square Bulletin this way:

The consensus was pretty clear among county officials who met on Tuesday at the county courthouse: They want to take steps towards making the Thomson PUD the site of the county’s new correctional facility.

Your request last Wednesday also came just nine days after the Collaborative Justice Project Working Subcommittee made a different recommendation for the new jail site. This subcommittee was formed with County and City representation to find a viable path forward after the County Council twice disapproved the North Park site for the new jail. The Commissioners were asked to appoint a representative to this group but declined to do so. The CJPWS voted 3-2 in favor of renovating and expanding the current jail site, with the Thomson site off of S. Rogers St. a close second. The Hopewell site did not make it into the top five sites considered by the subcommittee.

The Hopewell site has a long history of planning since the City of Bloomington entered into an agreement with IU Health to purchase the site of the hospital and surrounding lots in 2018. The City commissioned a report by the Urban Land Institute that same year which included broad community engagement and resulted in a preliminary vision for housing and some limited commercial/office space on the site. A Hospital Re-Use Steering Committee with broad community representation started holding public meetings in December 2019. In 2020, the City’s consultant Skidmore Owings & Merrill held many online public outreach sessions and conducted in-depth site studies that resulted in a master plan by the end of that year, again focused on providing housing for the community. During this time, neither the steering committee nor the City Council was ever approached by the County Commissioners with a request to use part of the property for a new jail.

Hopewell is needed to provide more housing in our community. Every single economic development professional I have spoken with in the last five years agrees we need more housing, and multiple studies have indicated the same. I see no reason to now abandon almost all of the planned housing in Hopewell West due to a request from the County Commissioners who, after all the City’s planning and infrastructure investment, now want to put a jail on the site. Please note that the preliminary jail overlay site plan you presented in hard copy to City Councilmembers last Wednesday actually has the jail complex taking up space where the Kohr Building expansion has already been constructed as part of a low-income supportive housing development.

Regarding the caveat that you appended to your request, please note that City Council Resolution 2026-07, which supported the County Council’s denial of the North Park site for a new jail complex, said the following about relevant city processes for a new site:

The Common [City] Council will work with County Council and Commissioners to support an expedited permitting process for the construction of a new criminal justice center within city limits.

Yet you have asked the City Council to forego the entire rezoning process which would be required if Hopewell were to be used for the new jail. The Council never promised this, and it would be unfair and unwise for a democratic local government to simply disregard its carefully reasoned and codified planning and land use processes in order to accommodate a request from another level of government, even if it could be argued that the request is in the public’s best interests. Processes are in place for a reason. The Council agreed to try to expedite its processes (and in particular, the permitting) but not to override them.

As a Bloomington native and long-time public servant, I am disappointed that the Monroe County Commissioners have not addressed the jail situation, which became evident at least by the time the ACLU lawsuit was filed in 2008, much earlier. All the reasons for the urgency you are now citing to build a new jail have existed for nearly 18 years, and that is the responsibility of your office.

In summary, I cannot support the request you made on July 22 in regard to the Hopewell site.

Sincerely,

Isabel Piedmont-Smith
Bloomington City Council, District 1

Image: The 1947 art deco Kohr building on the Hopewell site. Only this building and the parking garage were left standing when IU Health turned the site over to the City of Bloomington.