NOTE: This article with Chamber President and CEO, Eric Spoonmore, was originally published on May 13, 2022 in Limestone Post Magazine by Steve Hinnefeld. Monroe Convention Center opened in 1991 in the Graham Auto Sales building (built in 1923) at the corner of West 3rd Street and South College Avenue. Even then, local tourism officials argued it needed to be larger to attract even medium-size conventions. Now, though, some officials wonder if this is the right time to expand. | Photo by Limestone Post For a time, it looked like the long-discussed expansion of the Monroe Convention Center was about to come to pass. Bloomington and Monroe County officials were talking about how to make it happen. They didn’t always agree, but they were talking. Hopes for progress were high.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and everything shut down: tourism, travel, and talk of expanding the center. Now business leaders and some local government officials want to reboot the process, but they may face an uphill fight. Key decision makers in county government aren’t convinced that now is the time to expand the convention center. Or even that expanding is a good idea. “I just feel we’re in such a time of flux and uncertainty, it doesn’t make sense to move forward with a huge project without knowing what’s coming,” says Julie Thomas, president of the Monroe County board of commissioners. The Monroe Convention Center opened in 1991 in a former car dealership at 302 S. College Ave. Almost from the start, local tourism officials argued it needed to be larger. A 2003 Herald-Times column lamented that the center was “considered too small to attract even medium-sized conventions.” It took years of lobbying, but finally local leaders got the Indiana General Assembly to authorize a 1 percent food and beverage tax to fund the convention center expansion or “related tourism or economic development projects.” That was in 2009. Then it took until December 2017 for the Monroe County Council to vote, 4-3, to impose the tax, despite vocal opposition. “That was the hard part, the big, heavy lift,” says Eric Spoonmore, president and CEO of the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce. “But there’s been no progress since.”
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NOTE: This Kelley School of Business Go from Moment to Momentum article was published on April 5, 2022 with Indiana University's Kelley School of Business Blog. By: George Vlahakis As a student at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business, Lance Breitstein fell in love with the stock market. He read or watched anything he could find on the topic, whether it was a book, a blog or a video.
“What I realized was that I really wanted to go into the field of stock trading,” recalled Breitstein, a 2011 Kelley alumnus who today lives in Chicago. After getting a bachelor’s degree in finance, Breitstein spent a “wonderful” decade working at Trillium Management, one of the nation’s first and fastest growing digital trading firms. He managed its Chicago office and became one of its top traders. NOTE: This Business/Finance feature was published in the April/May 2022 edition of Bloom Magazine. By: Kristen Senz Eric Spoonmore is driven to help make his local community a better place to live, work, and do business. That’s why, he says, after earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in public affairs at Indiana University, he moved with his wife, Lindsey, to Washington, D.C., to consult with local government officials. But he quickly came to a stark realization. “We were ready to go whip the world in Washington, but we realized it was just not for us,” says Spoonmore, 40, who became president and CEO at the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce in December 2021. “The community did not suit me the way Bloomington did.” NOTE: This WFIU Interview with Chamber CEO Eric Spoonmore was published in the March 17, 2022 WFIU Noon Edition by Bente Bouthier. Noon Edition airs on Fridays at noon on WFIU.
Monroe County dropped into the blue advisory on the state’s COVID-19 map this week – indicating the lowest level of viral spread. The drop in cases is reminiscent to last spring and summer, when the state last experienced low levels of spread. And having met its goals for low community COVID spread , the county lifted its mask mandate this month. Indiana’s unemployment rate fell to 2.4 percent in January– the lowest rate in the Midwest. But the state’s labor force participation rate hasn’t moved much and isn’t on par with national numbers. |
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