"Bush Stadium" Adaptive Reuse Initiative

The Challenge

A historic metropolitan baseball stadium was scheduled for demolition, threatening to send thousands of cast-iron stadium chairs directly to a landfill. Simultaneously, the city of Indianapolis faced a stark public transit infrastructure gap: out of 4,000 active bus stops, only 42 featured any form of passenger seating, leaving transit riders sitting on the ground. After a high-concept proposal to transform the entire stadium into a green research facility faced real estate pushback and was shelved, a targeted alternative was required to salvage the physical assets, coordinate municipal bureaucracies, and launch a scalable, urban seating system.

The historic Bush Stadium - Indianapolis, IN (2011)

The Strategy

Project Origination & Pitch Architecture: Co-founded the environmental design collective Ecolaborative alongside my brother, engineering the original strategic proposal that brought material rescue to People for Urban Progress. We developed comprehensive visual presentations and spatial design mockups linking historic upcycling data with real transit rider needs, successfully securing absolute project consensus from non-profit boards and transit executives.

Technical Documentation: I managed the visual and technical cataloging of the complex disassembly, components sorting, and sandblasting processes. I designed the visual assembly guides and hardware layouts required for industrial powder-coaters and structural engineers to safely remanufacture the vintage cast-iron frames onto custom-built, free-standing steel bases.

Bush Stadium Seat Removal Collaborators
Courtesy of People for Urban Progress

The Impact

The original pitch and systematic visual frameworks successfully diverted 9,000 historic cast-iron seats from the landfill. The resulting infrastructure network safely deployed over 50 IndyGo public transit benches throughout Indianapolis, effectively doubling the city’s public bus stop seating capacity using existing regional resources. The multi-stakeholder project was featured in the Spontaneous Interventions: "Urban Actions for the Common Good" exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale and officially won the Indiana Innovation Award for excellence in sustainable public sector collaboration.

PUPstop Assembly Footage Documentary
Courtesy of People for Urban Progress

The Collaboration

Urban Indy Interview with Michael Bricker, Found of People for Urban Progress

"Ryan Fitzpatrick and his brother Kevin (from and organization called Ecolaborative) were working with the Bush Stadium reuse people and came up to People for Urban Progress with the idea for salvaging the seats. We also had an intern named Ryan Gallagher, whose college thesis was based on increasing bus ridership, and he believed that increasing amenities would help towards that goal. Basically, our organization was the facilitator that brought these two ideas together."

Ryan Gallgher (PUP) and Ryan Fitzpatrick (Ecolaborative) take in the view at Bush Stadium in Indianapolis, IN

Michael Bricker (PUP), Kevin & Ryan Fitzpatrick (Ecolaborative), Ryan Gallagher (PUP)