The blueprint for the latest makeover of the Southtown Shopping Center, where nostalgia left vacant spaces after Herberger's and Toys ‘R Us shuttered, is shifting into high gear with the City Council’s green light for its reimagining. The makeover, according to the City of Bloomington's official announcement, features a new two-level Dick’s House of Sport retail behemoth that will elbow up next to the Kohl’s store, alongside a fresh 18,000-square-foot outdoor athletic field that’s set to grace the north side near I-494.
The developers aren’t just swinging for a sports mecca, rather they’ve got their eyes on a future phase that entails hoisting a four-story medical office building into the Southtown skyline and the plan extends beyond just building, with parking lot reconstructions, and code compliance upgrades, landscaping refinements and lighting installations are added to the mix to jazz up the premises. Of interest in the pedestrian realm, the project intends to bolster the walkability with strategic sidewalk installations that will wind through the parking lot and along Knox Avenue, including a path to an existing mass transit artery – the Orange Line Bus Rapid Transit tunnel.
While the Southtown Shopping Center’s rebirth is poised to stir the local economy, the grand reveal comes stapled with a cautionary note; the looming issue of the area's inadequate sanitary sewer infrastructure could play the spoiler if not addressed, this key concern was underscored by the City as a hurdle to further development. Meanwhile, project stakeholders can mark their calendars for the proposed commencement of the Dick’s House of Sport construction, and the concomitant parking reforms which are penned in for this fall.
The City of Bloomington is optimistic that what's unfolding at Southtown won't be the last of the growth spurt; it’s widely anticipated there's more in the pipeline given the node’s potential, and as long as the infrastructural prerequisites, like the sanitary sewer capacity challenges, are squared away prior to any new phases, the trajectory seems geared towards upward and onward. For all intents and purposes, Southtown could be bracing for a shopping and health care renaissance, linking the community tightly with the machinations of modern commerce and well-being – a future well worth watching.
