Franklin Active Adult Center demolished for new building, services relocated

The Franklin Active Adult Center and Payne Park’s playground equipment have been demolished but will be built back better.

Demolition crews began tearing down the playground on Tuesday and the senior center, 160 E. Adams St., on Wednesday to make way for modern facilities on the same site. By Thursday, all that was left of the former building was rubble and workers were cutting down trees on the property.

The new Active Adult Center is a $5 million project first authorized by the city council in October 2023 to upgrade the existing senior center, which is too small and too outdated to support the needs of Franklin’s senior population. The demolition of the old senior center building marks the end of a chapter for the senior center and a goodbye to a building that has a history dating back to the late 1800s.

The equipment in Payne Park will also be relocated to a different section of the land and replaced as part of the project.

Construction of the new center and park is expected to be completed in the summer of 2025. In the meantime, Franklin Parks and Recreation officials have made arrangements for seniors to attend Active Adult Center programming at Turning Point Church, 3600 N. Morton St., Franklin, four days a week. A few fitness classes are being held out of the Cultural Arts and Recreation Center, 396 Branigin Blvd.

After Aug. 7, both facilities will more equally share services with the members, with the church sponsoring two days and the recreation center sponsoring two days per week.

“We are on schedule at this point and hopefully we get the good weather that we need to complete the project on time or ahead of schedule and we can get everybody moved back in and the park back and everything will be hunky-dory,” said Rocky Stultz, parks and recreation assistant superintendent.

The project is being funded using cash on hand in the city’s budget and does not require bond financing, city officials previously said.

Growing pains

As Franklin has grown over the years, so has the membership of the senior center. So has the need for more space and repairs, parks officials say.

The old building needed a new roof, had a HVAC unit without uniform duct work, restrooms that weren’t compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and no studs in certain parts of the building because of termite damage, Chip Orner, Franklin’s parks director, previously said.

With approximately 602 members, the center wasn’t large enough for its users. Activities were crammed into one space. The multipurpose room had a library, fitness center, dance floor, stage, card tables, computers and more.

During the center’s popular luncheons, the building felt cramped and didn’t have enough activity space or adequate restrooms or kitchen space. The kitchen was small and outdated, Orner said.

Officials also said parking was a challenge some days. There were only 36 parking spaces at the center with overflow parking on the Payne Park basketball court.

The new Active Adult Center was something Orner and Mayor Steve Barnett had been working toward for years, they previously said.

Barnett puts the new center on the same level as the DriveHubler.com Amphitheater in importance for residents’ quality of life.

“This is big for our community. It isn’t as visible as the amphitheater, but it is just as important for the community,” Barnett said. “The amphitheater is for all ages, but this is really big for our seniors.”

Modern facility

The new Active Adult Center will offer larger space and more amenities for seniors and the general public. The center will also have several spaces that can be rented by the public and will continue to be the performance venue for Our Town Players, the Franklin-based community theater group.

In the new facility, several rooms will be dedicated to different activities. There will be a space for a library and media room, billiards room, exercise room and a theater, Orner previously said. The new theater will have better amenities, he said, like a dressing room and more seating.

The new building will also accommodate renting after hours, which will bring in money for programming, Orner said. A new rentable feature would be an outdoor area with a stage that could hold small concerts, weddings or parties.

For events, there will be a larger kitchen space, a food staging area and a pantry. The space for pitch-in dinners would grow from 49 seats to 108 seats, officials said.

The entrance of the center will face the parking lot. This will make it easier for seniors to get into the building from the parking lot.

To accommodate a larger parking lot with a little over 80 spots for the center, Payne Park’s playgrounds, benches and shelter will move to the southwest part of the property, officials said.

Traces of history

Before it became the Franklin Active Adult Center, the building housed a teen center. But before that, it was an annex to the historic P.W. Payne School.

The original school building was built in 1870 and has had many names over the years, including North School and Central School. It was the first all-grades school built in Franklin and was later converted to an elementary school named for P.W. Payne, “a physician and a Christian gentleman who served on the school board at the time the school was built,” according to a historic marker for the school.

The building that would eventually become the senior center was an addition to the Payne School which added a cafeteria and auditorium for the school.

The Payne School closed in 1967, when it was an elementary school, and students were transferred to the newly built Webb Elementary. The original 1870-built school building was torn down in 1969 but the later-erected auditorium and cafeteria area was saved because it was in a better state of repair, according to stories from the Daily Journal archives.

In 1972, the city of Franklin reached an agreement to buy the building and the land for $25,000 from Franklin schools to create a park and community center in 1972, archives show.

The community center opened in 1976 and originally served both as a boys and girls club, teen center and a senior center. Eventually, it was just referred to as the Franklin Senior Center and began to primarily serve seniors, archives show.

The building was expanded to the most recent footprint of the Active Adult Center in 1983.