Walk into Bottleworks Hotel and the first thing you notice is the terrazzo floors that look like they’ve been there since 1931 because they have. This place started life as a Coca-Cola bottling plant back when Art Deco was the hottest thing in architecture, and somehow the bones survived almost a century before someone finally turned it into a boutique hotel. The exterior still has the original white terra-cotta tile and gold-leaf lettering that screams 1930s glamour, with geometric facades that make you want to stand outside and stare at the details.
- Bottleworks Hotel occupies a restored 1931 Coca-Cola bottling plant that was once the largest glass bottling facility in the world.
- The $300 million restoration preserved original Art Deco elements including terrazzo floors, vaulted ceilings, ceramic tile mosaics, and thousands of terra-cotta tiles.
- The 139-room boutique hotel opened in December 2020 as part of a larger mixed-use district featuring restaurants, a food hall, and entertainment venues.
When Soda Factories Were Built Like Palaces
Brothers Lee and James Yuncker opened this bottling plant during the Great Depression, which seems like terrible timing until you realize they were sitting on something special. Indianapolis in the 1930s was experiencing an industrial boom, and the Yunckers wanted their facility to reflect the scale of their ambition. They hired local architectural firm Rubush and Hunter to design something that would stop people in their tracks.
At its peak, this plant cranked out 2 million bottles of Coke per week, making it the largest bottling facility in the world. The Yunckers built a showpiece with ornate plaster ceilings, gilded staircases, and ceramic tile mosaics that looked more appropriate for a luxury hotel than an industrial plant.
The Long Sleep Before the Comeback
The party ended in 1964 when Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Tony Hulman bought the franchise and moved operations to nearby Speedway. The building sat there for decades, first as car storage, then as Indianapolis Public Schools’ kitchen and bus depot. Nobody was thinking about preservation, so the Art Deco details got covered up or damaged.
By the time developers started looking at the property in the 2010s, parts of the ceiling were caving in and ductwork had punched holes through walls. Most bidders wanted to demolish everything and start fresh. But Hendricks Commercial Properties saw what everyone else was missing: the bones were still good.
How They Actually Pulled It Off
RATIO Architects took on the restoration, and they didn’t mess around. When they found damaged terra-cotta tiles on the exterior, they brought in a ceramicist who spent eight months hand-making replacements. Each shade represented different Coca-Cola flavorings used in the original plant.
Inside, they kept everything worth keeping. The vaulted ceilings stayed. The marble and bronze accents got cleaned up and restored. The terrazzo floors were refinished to their original luster. Where the Filler Machine Room once stood, guests now check in surrounded by colorful polished tile and shining brass fixtures.
The hotel rooms sit on the top two floors. Glossy red doors honor the classic Coke brand. Black walls create a museum-like setting for five-foot portraits. Corridors feel more like gallery spaces than hotel hallways.
What Makes This Different
Here’s what separates Bottleworks from typical historic hotel conversions: they preserved the architectural elements first, then built the modern amenities around them. You can see the stairwell that winds up through detailed decorative work resembling vintage soda fountains. The ceiling design looks like fizz bubbling up. These aren’t replicas, they’re the actual 1931 details that survived.
The main lobby windows are the same ones where people used to watch bottles being filled with Coke. The vertical green patterns in the tilework represent sugar cane. The red tile around doors supposedly mimics bottle shapes. Whether that symbolism was intentional or retrofitted doesn’t really matter. It works.
The District Around It
The hotel is just one piece of the larger Bottleworks District. The original garage buildings now house The Garage Food Hall with local food vendors and live music. There’s an eight-screen movie theater, restaurants, a spa, bowling, and shops spread across five blocks. The whole development reconnected the site to Indianapolis’ street grid after decades of being walled off.
Why It Matters
Projects like Bottleworks show what’s possible when developers take adaptive reuse seriously. Instead of demolishing architectural history and building something generic, they kept what made the building special and added contemporary comfort around it.
The restoration took five years and cost $300 million, but the result is a hotel that tells a story about Indianapolis, IN, history and what happens when people care enough to save something worth saving. Walking through the lobby with its original fixtures, you understand why the city fought to preserve this building.
