Studebaker Administration Building)

(New on 10 Most list)
635 North Main Street, South Bend

From 1868 to 1963, Studebaker wagons and automobiles rolled out of the manufacturer’s South Bend plants and into America’s garages and hearts. By 2008, only two landmarks will remain to mark the company’s storied industrial presence in the city. The four-story Studebaker Administration Building opened in 1909 to accommodate the firm’s expanding white-color staff. Designed in the Renaissance Revival style by influential architect Solon Spencer Beman, the massive red-brick structure also housed employee clubs that offered recreation and fellowship, with a bowling alley, billiard tables, an exercise room and more. In 1941, the company declared the Administration Building a landmark reflection of “the character of Studebaker….strong…ruddy and robust, but not fancy or smeared with gadgets.”)

The threat: The South Bend School Corporation owns the Administration Building, which it received as a gift from the city in 1970 and will occupy until this summer. Negative local perceptions of the building’s size—150,000 square feet—and reusability cloud its prospects. Historic Landmarks has been given permission to market the structure for redevelopment; if we don’t find a buyer, the building may meet the same fate as all but one of the many historic Studebaker manufacturing facilities—demolition.)

For more information contact:
Todd Zeiger
Director, Northern Regional Office
Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana
Northern Regional Office, South Bend
574-232-4534

Frontage of one of the manufacturing buildings

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Factory Buildings
South Bend, IN

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