A note from co-founders Jim Walker and Shauta Marsh

Thank you for considering supporting our truly transformational project that embraces the arts in a truly unique and restorative space for everyone! We’re in the midst of a $5 million capital campaign to pay for renovating and furnishing the 125-year old former factory building on our near-southside campus as a social and cultural hub. 

After first investing $2 million in stabilizing “The Big Tube” starting in 2022, we’re now moving forward with our second phase thanks to raising $3.5 million and utilizing a bridge loan. 

This is where you come in: We still need to raise at least another $1.5 million to be able to pay back the loan over the next three years. And we hope to raise more to set aside as a maintenance endowment. 

One of our generous supporters so far, Efroymson Family Fund, has offered to match up to $50,000 as a way to help encourage new donors or gifts from folks who’d like to give at a larger level for the first time. 

Interested? We’d love to hear from you to answer any follow-up questions or schedule a visit to the campus. Just email us here. We can accept gifts however might work best for you. And we’d be happy to work that out. 

If you’re ready to give, our mailing address is:

Big Car, 1125 Cruft St. Indianapolis, IN 46203

And we accept online donations here. Just toggle down to the Big Tube option. 

More details about Big Tube

Expanding on what we’ve offered since 2016 at Tube Factory, this 40,000-square-foot facility — planned to open in fall of 2025 — will be a contemporary art museum with seven gallery spaces. Here, we’ll continue to commission work on the themes of community, memory, and mythology. 

Big Tube — and our Tube Factory campus that also includes 18 affordable homes for artists — is also about sharing art as a universal language helps bridge divisions. Art encourages empathy and supports happiness. And people are often more open to art than each other. We’re so excited about sharing the joys of creativity as we bring people together in this place! 

What’s new in Big Tube:

• An expansive exhibition space for larger 3-D work and installations 
• 18 long-term, affordable studios for artists
• a culinary center with a cafe and ba
• a large performing arts and event space
• five business incubator storefronts
• a home for our arts-focused radio station, 99.1 WQRT FM
• and dedicated offices for our staff 

We’re building on what Big Car Collaborative has brought to our city over the last 20 years — thanks to the support of people like you.  

Big Tube will help us: 

• further support visual, sound, performance, and culinary artists from Indianapolis and beyond  
• strengthen our community by helping build civic pride and social connections
• and entertain and enlighten visitors from across the street and around the world. 

You can get a lot more detail here.

We’re very excited about this place for art and people. And we’re deeply grateful to all of our incredible donors, partners, board members, neighbors, and staff artists for helping us make it happen. And we thank you for your consideration of helping out with this important project!