The Marsh supermarket at Keystone Plaza in Indianapolis was built as the company’s flagship store in 1957. It was remodeled int he 1960s and closed 2017. Today, it’s home to NAPA Auto Parts and Ollie’s Bargain Outlet.
“Abandoned Marsh” was my project to stylistically document the Marsh Supermarkets closed by Sun Capital Partners, an investment firm that owned the home-grown company for the final decade of its eighty-six year history. The last Marsh supermarket closed in 2017.
The company’s stores built from around 1980 to 2004 or so were easily identifiable because of their angular greenhouses and dark brick massing. Instead of taking pictures of the buildings, I decided to create 18×24 vector files in Adobe Illustrator, focusing on the complexity of their angles and how shadows and highlights interacted with them.
When I first lived on my own in Indianapolis (1985-86) that was the “real grocery” in my life (as opposed to the “quick grocery” that was a little 50’s era “supermarket” at 39th and Illinois.)
Even though I never shopped there, I was sad to see it close when the headlines came through in 2017. In its original configuration, that store was a real milestone for the company.
When I was in college, during the mid-late 80s, there were a couple of Marsh stores in the Lafayette/West Lafayette area, & I lived very near one in Indianapolis, when I first moved to Indianapolis. I was a loyal customer, until the end, when all of the locations closed. It is sad that Marsh ended up closing–I miss shopping there, along with Cub Foods. I like Kroger, but I really miss Marsh & Cub!
It really was a sad day when Marsh closed. Around here, two of them turned to Pay-Less (Kroger).