The factory that almost fell: Electric Works

2015 — 2025

Demolition was the discussed option: When General Electric closed its Broadway campus in 2015 — a complex that had employed some 20,000 people at its height — the end, at first, looked like the standard one. In October 2015 generations of former GE workers walked the campus to bid on old machinery and sentimental artifacts at auction; the following year the iconic rooftop GE sign came down, and, as WPTA's retrospective puts it, "most assumed a wrecking ball was next." The assumption had official company: when Ancora's chief executive first visited, he later recounted, city leaders discussed demolition — turning the plant into a greenfield site. What happened instead was the largest preservation negotiation in the city's history. Cross Street Partners bought the east and west campuses in 2017; the partnership led by Ancora Partners and RTM Ventures redeveloped the west campus as Electric Works on $286 million of stacked financing, of which $35.7 million was federal historic tax credits — the National Trust Community Investment Corporation's largest historic tax credit investment in its history. Eight historic buildings of 1907–1942 on the twelve-acre west campus were retained; the campus was listed on the National Register as the General Electric Electric Works district in 2023, the year Phase 1 opened, and by the developer's accounting it brought some 1,000 jobs back to the site. In 2025 Indiana Landmarks gave the project its Cook Cup for Outstanding Restoration. The argument is not finished — WPTA's 2026 retrospective records the developer's own admission that the market-hall vision "hasn't gone the way that we wanted" — but the buildings the wrecking ball was assumed for are standing, occupied, and on the Register.

Sources:

1. Indiana Landmarks, press release (May 29, 2025) and Indiana Preservation (July/August 2025) — the 2025 Cook Cup, the $286 million financing, the $35.7 million in historic tax credits, and the retained buildings.
2. WPTA, "Revisiting the dream of Electric Works" (2026) — the October 2015 auction, the 2016 sign removal, the wrecking-ball assumption, and the project's contested second act.
3. Bisnow (November 1, 2022) — the demolition discussions recounted by Ancora's chief executive.
4. Architecture — the GE Broadway campus and the 2023 district listing, cross-referenced.