Bottleworks District
Indianapolis, IN
- Hospitality
- Mixed-Use
180,000 SF Hotel / 139 Keys
75,000 SF Retail
80,000 SF Parking Garage
Conde Nast Traveler: 21 Best Places to Go in 2021
TIMES World’s Greatest Places 2021
Cook Cup for Outstanding Restoration, Indiana Landmarks
Anchoring the Avenue
Perched on an 11-acre site at the east end of Indianapolis’ historic Massachusetts Avenue, the former Coca-Cola bottling factory is an Art Deco showpiece. Faced with thousands of white terra cotta tiles and accented with hand-lettering glinting with gold leaf, the exterior design carries through to intricate balustrades, glazed tile mosaics, and vaulted ceilings found throughout the main building and garages.
A Local Treasure
Built in the 1940s, the plant is a local treasure. By the 1950s, it had become the largest Coca-Cola plant in the world. But twenty years later the factory was sold, used for storage and administrative work, and closed to the public.
We embraced the opportunity to reinvent the site, connect it to the community, and create a boutique hotel. The client had a strong vision — this would be a district, highly integrated into the surrounding neighborhoods and instrumental to the future of Indianapolis. Surrounding streets and sidewalks were rejoined to the city grid, improving vehicle circulation and pedestrian access. The streetscape has been finished in brick pavers and granite curbs flanked with trees.
Throughout the site, we were sensitive and thoughtful with our designs. To accommodate 139 hotel guest rooms for example, we added a third story — to what was originally a two-story footprint.
A New Addition
The profile is stepped-back from the street, and a glazing system slopes away from the facade so as not to detract from the original sightlines. By removing the central roof and floor, we also created a new courtyard for guest-room garden views.
Historic Heart
As a factory, the sprawling building’s forest of concrete columns created a generally open plan. The original spaces that could be considered room-like were few: the filler room and lobby rotunda with spiral stair along Massachusetts Avenue and a suite of offices and a lab on the second floor. RATIO’s designers placed these historic spaces at the heart of the new hotel experience.
Filler Room
“Cleanliness and food safety were paramount to the selling of the product,” Browne, Jr., FAIA says. “They decided that the filler room needed to be highly visible to the public.” Thus, the grand tiled space that opens directly to Massachusetts Avenue via an open bronze storefront. The bottles would come out and be filled in front of your eyes, then would go back behind the wall and have a cap put on, would be set up and crated and shipped out.
Lobby
The filler room was the obvious choice for the hotel’s lobby as its ornate ceramic tile walls, terrazzo floors, and plaster ceilings were substantially intact.
“We had a ceramicist hand make all of the tiles that were damaged,” RATIO Interior Design Associate Michelle Heltzel says. “The colors were symbolic of the different flavorings that went into Coca-Cola.”
A New Destination
Visitors and locals alike will experience the site as both a historic gem and a contemporary gathering place. They’ll peruse the record store, grab a drink or two in the beer hall, get a haircut, or see a film at the arts cinema. A festive atmosphere will spill out from the Garage food hall to the brick-paved pathways, as catenary lights hang overhead. For nearly fifty years, Bottleworks was partitioned off from the public. It was a barrier. Now, it will be a destination.
