Former Studebaker plant to become mixed-use tech hub in South Bend, Ind.

The largest data center in northern Indiana, the Union Station Technology Center, has commissioned Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture to lead the campus design of the former Studebaker corridor located on the southwest edge of downtown South Bend, Ind., in an area known as the Renaissance District.

The area will be developed as part of a mixed-use campus consisting of more than one million sf of Class A office, education, technology, research-grade manufacturing, data center, and live-work spaces.

Once the nation’s fourth largest automobile manufacturer, employing as many as 23,000 people in South Bend, the Studebaker campus closed in 1963.

The redevelopment project is intended to draw data and technology companies to the northern Indiana town.

“The Renaissance District is a remarkable vision that demonstrates how cities must renew themselves in a vibrant, yet sustainable fashion,” expressed Gordon Gill, a founding partner of AS+GG.  “It is exciting to be a part of a project that enables companies with growing data and energy needs to actually reduce their carbon footprint and energy costs while revitalizing a community. This project will be a trendsetter that the world will follow.”