A Town’s Heritage Preserved: The Old, Old Jail
While President of the Heritage Foundation, a half-century old historic preservation non-profit in Franklin, Tennessee, the group lost the lease on space it had occupied for over a decade. The work the Foundation had done to revitalize Main Street had been highly successful and the cost to lease space had risen as well.
Cyril told Mary Pearce, the Executive Director, “Mary, there will come a time, sooner rather than later, that the foundation can’t afford to lease space in historic downtown Franklin. We need to find the most hopeless building in town and own it”.
The most hopeless building had been on the “Franklin Five” list of most endangered buildings for years and was a 1942 “Old, Old Jail” that had been boarded up for over a decade. It had three kinds of mold, peeling lead paint and asbestos. The only system still operational was the structural system. The roof, electrical, mechanical, plumbing and other systems had all become non-functional.
Knowing that the Foundation had the ability to make this project happen, the city sold the building and 0.92 acre site to the foundation. Gifts from generous and passionate donors made the $2.5 million restoration/transformation possible and today the Old, Old Jail is the “Center for Historic Preservation”, another jewel in Franklin’s historic downtown, and the “forever home” for the Foundation.
