The Modern Era — the Century Center and the Present State of the Record

1977 – present

The Century Center: The modern era's monument stands on the West Race where hundreds of industrial and commercial buildings were cleared for it. The Century Center, designed by Philip Johnson and John Burgee — the Johnson/Burgee partnership at the height of its powers — broke ground in 1974 and opened in 1977, at a cost carried at $13 million in the university's survey record. The Redevelopment Commission's minutes describe a facility of 220,000 square feet; its meeting space is billed at more than 75,000 square feet in the standard descriptions and at more than 100,000 by the venue itself, figures that stand in the record as their sources give them. Its set pieces are the 25,000-square-foot Convention Hall, the 12,000-square-foot Discovery Ballroom, and the Great Hall, 16,000 square feet behind a 30-foot glass wall overlooking the St. Joseph River; the South Bend Museum of Art occupies three levels of its northern wing, an enclosed skywalk joins it to the adjoining hotel, and a tunnel runs to the College Football Hall of Fame building across the street — whose own record, its 1995 opening, its 2012 closing and its present vacancy, belongs to the Halls of Fame section. Across the West Race canal, Island Park, an 11-acre riverfront park, belongs to the complex. The building's newest use is of this decade: the Bendix Esports Arena, a 600-seat arena built inside the center, opened on 4 February 2021.

The present state, verified November 2026: The built record's current condition, building by building where this section has carried it, is this. The register grows: Edgewater Place, Taylor's Field and the Bowman Creek culvert are listings of 2026. The Morris Performing Arts Center’s Encore Center addition opened beside the Palace Theatre in February 2026. The Blackstone-State Theater stands in public ownership with a funded redevelopment plan before the city. The Palais Royale ballroom works as an events venue; the LaSalle and Robertson's buildings work as apartments; the Tower Building and the J.M.S. Building work as offices; Liberty Tower's facade was renovated between 2015 and 2020. Against those stand the open files: the Studebaker Administration Building, empty since 2006 and endangered-listed in 2023, roofed and secured under its 2024 agreement but unconverted; the College Football Hall of Fame building vacant since 2012; and Tippecanoe Place, a National Historic Landmark without a use since its restaurant closed in January 2026. The city's building stock has been surveyed, listed and argued over for fifty years; the argument, as the newest listings show, is still adding names to the record faster than it loses them.

Sources:

1. Century Center (centurycenter.org) and Building South Bend, "Century Center" (ND-SB-04927) — the Johnson and Burgee design, the 1974 groundbreaking and 1977 opening, the $13 million project, the hall sizes, the glass wall, Island Park and the museum wing; City of South Bend Redevelopment Commission minutes (5 November 1993) — the facility at 220,000 square feet.
2. Coliseum Online and Century Center — the Bendix Esports Arena's opening of 4 February 2021.
3. The entries above, with their sources — the 2026 listings, the Encore Center, the State Theater process, the Administration Building's state, the Hall of Fame building's vacancy (Halls of Fame section) and the Tippecanoe Place closure.