A light at the end of the tunnel: Brickwork repairs are coming to a close

The night of Friday, March 31, 2023, was a whirlwind for the Historic Artcraft Theatre. After the evening showing of 2001: A Space Odyssey, everyone packed up and went home around 10:30 p.m. An hour later, tornado sirens would go off in Franklin and the surrounding area. Around midnight, Rob Shilts, Executive Director of Franklin Heritage, Inc., received a call that he needed to come down to the theater. So, he and his wife, Jaime, who is the events coordinator for the Artcraft, grabbed two flashlights and headed down the street.
 
"The first thing we noticed was that the marquee was a complete mess," says Rob. "A number of the panels had blown off. Most of the letters were gone or broken. It was a grim sight. We noticed that the red Vitrolite around the box office—a thick glass they stopped making in 1948—was broken, which seemed odd. The poster case on the south side of the theatre was completely gone. It has still never been found."

At that moment, standing outside the theatre, the small crew reeled, thinking how long the damage would take to fix. They went inside to assess whether there was any damage to the theatre's interior. With the electricity out, everyone held up their phones to light their way in the dark. As they approached the stage, Rob noticed a light shining down on the stage and movie screen, which wasn't normal.
 
"Brick pieces, dust, and mortar were everywhere on the stage, behind the screen, and near the row of seats right in front of the stage. A brick even hit one of the microphones, and it just made its mark on it," shares Rob.
 
Once the crew got backstage, they saw a hole in the west parapet wall, where the stage begins.
"When we saw that, we knew it was a dangerous situation on our hands, and we wouldn’t be opening for a while," says Rob.
 
That night, they took photos of the damage and called their insurance agent, and over the weekend, assembled a group to figure out what to do next.
 
On Monday morning, a team composed of brick manson Dennis Drake, roofers from Kammerling Construction, engineers from Arsee, and FHI staff met on top of the roof to assess the state of the Artcraft.

Two weeks before the storm, Arsee Engineers completed a study on the building and made a virtual report of it. That model was very useful in showing the effects of the storm on the top of the brick and roof and communicating to insurance and other parties the damage that was done.
 
"Within 48 hours, we had a team and assessed what had to happen. Pretty quickly, we had to do some major engineering and scaffolding for the building to be secure," shares Rob. "We found out that the roof of the Artcraft was picked up during the storm and then slammed back down several times. It would have blown away if it hadn't been for the large HVAC system on that part of the roof. It displaced some mortar and bricks every time it hit back down."
 
According to the Arsee report, seven courses of bring around the top of the building had to be replaced, and the brick was two wythes deep, which is a challenging task to do on a 101-year theatre. Dennis Drake recommended McVay Masonry to get the job. 
 
The project has been in progress for a year and a half. In the beginning, scaffolding had to be placed over the bricks without putting too much pressure on the walls so they wouldn't collapse. More holes had to be made in the brick to support I beams that would keep the Artcraft's structure stable while the repair work was being done.
 
Part of the uncertainty was not knowing how long it would take to fix the damage, primarily until the west wall was secure and repaired.
Emergency repairs were completed within two months allowing the theatre to reopen while other repairs were completed.
 
Another layer of difficulty was the powerlines in the alleyway blocking many spaces where the masons had to climb on scaffolding. Rob worked with Duke Energy to get them moved so that when scaffolding had to be used, it was safe, and no one was in danger.
 
"It took a while, but as soon as all of the lines were moved, I could see the light at the tunnel because that meant we could finish the critical repairs," says Rob.
 
While the scaffolding was up and the building was secure, FHI also saw this as an opportunity to work on tuckpointing the brick around the building—a process of removing and repairing deteriorated mortar joints between the bricks—something that already needed to be done to help preserve the feature of the theatre.

After emergency repairs were completed in May of 2023,  the size of the remaining masonry repairs and maintenance for the south, east, and north walls of the Artcraft were staggering. None of the brickwork could have been done without the help of the Economic Development Commission, which gave FHI a matching grant of $30,000, and Franklin Development Corporation, which gave a matching grant of $50,000 to help with the brickwork repairs and the tuckpointing.  
“That was $80,000 from the city that significantly helped us carry out the necessary maintenance while insurance-covered repairs were underway," says Rob.
 
A year and a half later, the repairs and the tuckpointing are finally coming to a close. If you look at the back exterior of the Artcraft today, you may see scaffolding climbing the wall on the north side of the theatre.
 
"The top eight layers of brick, and then what they call a coping or a limestone cap—all of that needs to be taken down and then rebuilt," says Rob. "Once that's done, the damage caused by the March 2023 storm is completely repaired."