Building Bloomington from Within: How Hopewell Is Reshaping What's Possible
Bloomington, Indiana is Indiana's most housing cost-burdened metro area, where home prices have climbed past $360,000 while wages stay flat and 60% of housing is rental. Now, on the site of the former IU Health Bloomington hospital, the city has a rare shot at something different: a neighborhood built close to downtown and designed around the people who call Bloomington home, not just the next wave of student housing.
Why They Invested in Training
In June 2025, Mayor Kerry Thomson's administration rejected conventional development proposals for the Hopewell site and instead partnered with Flintlock LAB, a firm known for community-first housing, to reimagine the neighborhood. That partnership set the tone: pre-approved home designs, local builders kept in the loop, a mix of affordable and market-rate homes, and real investment in training residents to become small-scale developers themselves.
Attendees at a recent Hopewell lecture with the Incremental Development Alliance
Bringing in the Incremental Development Alliance was the natural next step. Pre-approved plans only go so far if the city doesn't also grow the pipeline of people who know how to build within that framework. The city partnered with IncDev to put training directly in front of the builders, lenders, architects, and community members who can turn Hopewell's vision into built homes.
What's Happening
Bloomington is building this pipeline in stages. It started February 12 with an Introduction to Incrementalism lecture that drew 154 people from across the local real estate ecosystem — developers, lenders, architects, brokers, planners, contractors, and community advocates all in the same room.
Next up is the Small Scale Development Workshop, a full-day training on August 14, 2026 at Dimension Mill, aimed at that same broad, cross-disciplinary audience. Participants work through project formation, how buildings generate revenue, how to evaluate a project, and how to navigate the professional network behind small-scale development. Faculty include Jenifer Acosta of Acosta Real Estate and Development and Marques King of Fabric[K] Design.
IncDev faculty Eric Kronberg speaks for a Hopewell audience
From there, the pipeline narrows to action: the Small Scale Developer Bootcamp gives emerging and curious small-scale developers a hands-on space to apply what they've learned directly to a real project, building out a pro forma, an investor package, and a pitch.
Looking Ahead
With Hopewell South already approved and its first 98 homes moving toward groundbreaking, this training is meant to seed a lasting pipeline of local developers and advocates who can carry incremental development into neighborhoods across Bloomington.