Michigan City Hotel & Housing

Located between industry and midwestern paradise, you will find Washington Landing, an inlet lake along the Lake Michigan shore in Michigan City Indiana. The new multi-family housing complex and hotel tower will be minutes away from the Michigan City Amtrak train station and downtown Michigan City, Indiana. It will also be walkable distance to Lake Michigan, shopping and dining in downtown Michigan City, the Michigan City Zoo, and many lakefront parks and beaches. Washington Landing’s new development will become the hub of many disparate parts of the city. The proposed connection will enhance Michigan City’s tourism and lake shore inhabitant’s quality of life.

Immediately west of the site lays Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO), a massive industrial complex that powers much of the area as well as provides employment for nearby residents. Instead of turning a shoulder to an industrial past, Washington Landing embraces the industrial history of the city through the buildings’ shape and materiality of weathered steel paneling. Taking cues from the outlines of the NIPSCO conglomerate of buildings, smokestacks, cooling towers, and structures, the Washington Landing complex is sculpted to mimic a cohesive shaping of the next door industrial complex. The condominium building and hotel tower masses are further sculpted by connective pathways that lead from downtown to the Lake Michigan shoreline. The complex is then opened with low horizontal ribbon windows that reveal beautiful vistas of Lake Michigan and dunes up the shore. The weathered steel material, beyond aesthetics, provides a functional shell of the buildings and a new identity generated from the legacy of Northwest Indiana’s pride in the region’s industry. This concept of embracing history through materials is carried throughout the site to become fencing, canopy, and wayfinding to connect Michigan City to the lake front and downtown.

Washington Landing will be a catalytic force that promotes economic growth in an industrial town on the fringes of a vacation destination. The site will provide new employment for the city as well as create a new home and identity for lake front dwellers in the region, leaving a lasting impact on the history and development of Michigan City.