While the Roxy has been fighting almost 30 years to contribute life to downtown Clarksville, the city of Franklin spent 30 years revitalizing downtown before turning to the old theater for help.

The “new” Franklin Theatre celebrated its first birthday June 3. It has been a solid year of excitement for the city, says Nancy Williams, director of the Downtown Franklin Association, which is a part of the Heritage Foundation (the non-profit that owns the theater.)

Downtown Franklin itself has had an aggressive revitalization programming dating back 30 years, when “a lot of things happened, because it did have some significant vacancies, and buildings were not in good shape, and there were some infrastructure problems,” Williams says. “It had to be addressed on a lot of different fronts.”

Williams, director for 14 years but a volunteer before that, notes the Main Street area itself has been held up as one of the most vital downtown stretches in the country.

“The National Trust named it a Great American Main Street in 1995 and one of the most recent, livability.com, ranked it No. 4 in the nation in historic preservation efforts,” she says. That’s not counting other top 10 finishes in things like “most romantic” and “top places to retire.”

During much of that rebirth, the old Franklin Theatre, built in 1937, continued business as normal. Then a decision was made to bring it back to glory. That project began with the closing four years ago.

“The first year we tried to find some private investors for it. Then we had some big donations offered, so the Heritage Foundation was able to commit to buying it,” Williams says.

Then came the fund-raising, planning, hiring architects and contractor before work began, about a year before the theater reopened.

Since that time, there have been concerts, second-run movies, regular appearances by a theater troupe and even some corporate training sessions. Future uses for the old/new theater are still being examined.

The theater itself hasn’t turned a profit yet. But that was the expectation. “It wasn’t anticipated it would be operating at a profit in the first year and it didn’t,” says Williams. “It is where we expected it to be.”

But the success meter isn’t just what happens inside the theater.

“It immediately helped the restaurants,” Williams says. “They were reporting double-digit growth last year… We are seeing more restaurants opening.”

People don’t just come downtown for the theater, but they want to grab a bite or even listen to some music.

“The theater has encouraged more interesting music on Main Street,” she says, adding it’s just the beginning.