SOUTH BEND — The multiyear process of turning the city’s last Studebaker assembly plant into a center for high-tech companies has reached a milestone.
Officials said on Thursday at the city’s Redevelopment Commission meeting that environmental remediation has been completed at Building 84, a massive former factory that’s located along Lafayette Boulevard, south of the railroad viaduct downtown.
Also known as Ivy Tower, because of the vines that grew up its six-story face, the old plant was a symbol of decline for decades after Studebaker ended its production here. Looking ahead, however, it could become a symbol of the city’s new place in the modern economy.
Kevin Smith, the entrepreneur who rehabilitated Union Station and converted the rail depot into a data center, is aiming to do the same thing on a larger scale in the 800,000-square-foot Studebaker building.
Smith’s plan, which he unveiled in 2012, is to renovate the plant and fill it with tech-focused businesses, facilities for research and education, and include some apartments or condominiums as well.
A pair of two-story Studebaker buildings — a former machine shop named Building 112 and a truck-production plant named Building 113 — will be tied into Building 84 with a glass-roofed atrium designed to cover what is now an open courtyard. Union Station would effectively be the complex’s front door, and a tunnel under the railroad tracks would connect the entire development.