Filling it Up

Downtown Marion’s historic Firestone Auto Service Center has been out of service for 20 years; however, despite boarded-up windows and a faded exterior, the station’s streamlined design inspired local preservation nonprofit Save Our Stories (SOS) to rescue the property, now headed for transformation from eyesore to downtown destination.

In 2023, SOS, an Indiana Landmarks affiliate, used grants from Indiana Landmarks’ Efroymson Family Endangered Places Fund and our Indiana Automotive affinity group to conduct environmental and structural assessments of the Firestone building. Encouraged by the results, they bought the building, securing additional funds from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management to conduct remediation at the site before selling it to preservation-minded buyers last year. Now, the property is undergoing transformation as Hubworks Marion, a multi-use facility that will carry on revitalization momentum in the downtown commercial district.

Marion residents and business partners Evan Hoyt, Jon Preusz, and Kyle Mazellan were drawn to the Firestone building by its proximity to downtown and its streamlined architecture. “The building looks very modern for its age,” says Hoyt. “For young entrepreneurs, it felt like a good representation of us and our business model. We wanted to be part of the restoration activity we’ve seen downtown in the last five years and help bring about meaningful change to the community that we call home.”

Hubworks Marion will offer recreation, food service, and job skills within the 9,000 square-foot facility, including a pickleball court and space for entrepreneurial and job training. Inside the former lobby, the group plans to install a locally owned cafe or brew pub. Curran Architecture of Indianapolis is drafting rehabilitation designs, with the first phase to be completed by the fall of this year.

Constructed in 1936, the Marion Firestone Service Center’s heritage and architectural design received even more attention this spring when it gained listing in the National Register of Historic Places. The nomination cited the building as “a product of the machine age with an aerodynamic design that gives the illusion of speed, precision, and efficiency with uninterrupted horizontal lines and rounded corners.”

Firestone debuted the gleaming glass box design, later used in Marion and at Firestone locations around the country, at its pavilion at the 1933 Century of Progress World’s Fair in Chicago. An early leader in the field of tire production and one of the first to offer their products directly to the consumer, the cohesiveness of Firestone’s service center design provided an early form of three-dimensional corporate branding. The memorable design in Marion was built nationally until 1950.

See updates on the development at hubworksmarion.com.