History
Once home to assembly lines that built buggies and later cars-the site's legacy of modernization runs deep. Long home to innovators in the automotive industry, the site was pioneered by the Parry Manufacturing Company in 1884 and has been a landmark in the lives of the working-class families raised in the adjacent Valley neighborhood. In fact, the first car to win the Indy 500, the Marmon Wasp, was built in the Valley neighborhood. The Comet cycle car was financed by Parry manufacturing, and the Union railroad line went through the site connecting it to Union Station as well. A new era came in 1930, when General Motors Corporation purchased the property and manufactured truck bodies there until its closure in 2011. At that time, the stamping plant was mostly demolished, save the massive steel structure of the crane bay. Approximately 800 feet of the crane bay structure was salvaged and is envisioned to be the centerpiece of this transformation.
Specialties
Great change is possible with the right plan--both for the business ecosystem and the community. The plan for Waterside is to create a thriving new downtown district on this 103-acre lot that will include office, commercial and retail space, residential units, a hotel, community green space, and public recreational opportunities along the water. By challenging conventional notions of city building and breathing new life into an unused concrete slab, we aim to transform and sustain Indy's urban core for the next 100 years.