When the Tennessee Theatre opened its doors to patrons on Oct. 1, 1928, it was the new kid on the 600 block of South Gay Street. The elegant neo-classical building two doors down had already been there for 20 years.

The theater is seeking donations toward a $19.7 million capital campaign.

The two have co-existed for the near-century since. They are not adjacent on the street front but the bulk of the movie palace wraps around the back of the slim six-story Mechanics’ Bank and Trust Company, as the building at 612 S. Gay St. is still known even though the bank that gave it its name is long gone.

Now, the two are becoming one. Construction crews have been working inside the Mechanics’ Bank building for the past six months to renovate the historic structure for a variety of uses by the nonprofit theater. They will be connected via entrances through the back of the 612 building, across a 10 and a half foot gap to the Tennessee.

“It’s really about setting up the second century of the Tennessee Theatre to better serve its community,” said Becky Hancock, executive director of the Historic Tennessee Theatre Foundation, which owns and operates the theater. “Everyone has a lot of happy memories in the theater, and we do a lot of wonderful shows. But how can we do things even better?”

Historic Roots

Hancock led a media tour of the building under construction on Tuesday, coinciding with the launch of the public phase of a fundraising campaign to pay for the work. (You can find information and links to donate on the Tennessee Theatre website.)

Plans include a floor with bathrooms and an extra bar for theatergoers; a private space for small receptions and events related to bookings at the theater; a rehearsal space for performers; and administrative offices for the theater’s staff. Construction is slated to wrap up in the fall of 2025.

The theater purchased the first five floors of the building in 2019 for $2.4 million. The renovation and build-out will bring the total to $19.7 million. Hancock said the foundation has already raised about $17 million from donors before turning to the broader public for support.

“We know we’re going to get there,” she said. “We’ll get there quicker if more people help us out.”

The foundation purchased the separately-owned sixth floor just last month, for $1.7 million. Hancock said plans for that space haven’t been finalized, and its cost is not included in the $19.7 million total. But she said having nearly the whole building will give the theater plenty of options. (There is still one small separately owned apartment on the second story, with its own entrance.)

The building at 612 S. Gay St. has some interesting history of its own. The original Mechanics’ Bank and Trust building was constructed on the site in 1881. All or most of it was replaced in 1908 by the current structure, although at first it was only three stories high. The upper floors were added in an expansion in 1923.

Although it has primarily served as office space over the course of its life, local historian Jack Neely said it has some past engagement with the arts. For one thing, it was for a time the home of WROL radio, which in the 1940s and ‘50s was central to featuring and promoting the then-emerging genre of bluegrass.

Legendary duo Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs used it as their homebase, and one of the disc jockeys was a guy who went by Ernest Jennings Ford, before he added “Tennessee” to his name and became one of the biggest country stars of the era.

Maybe most notably, it was where Don and Phil Everly first played together as a duo, on Knoxville grocer and politico Cas Walker’s daily broadcast — and where they got fired by Walker for playing that darn rock ‘n’ roll. According to a story they told often in later years, they left the WROL studio in dejection and wandered a few feet up Gay Street to absorb the blow in the quiet dark of the Tennessee Theatre.

“They watched Three Coins in the Fountain, of all things, about young women in Rome,” said Neely, executive director of the Knoxville History Project. “Not much of a rock ‘n’ roll movie.”

The Everly Brothers, of course, survived the indignity.

WROL occupied the top floor of the building for only about five years before moving. Several decades later another noted cultural waystation took up residence, this time on the ground floor. Knoxville developer, restaurant owner and man about town Kristopher Kendrick — who bought and saved from demolition historic properties across Knoxville — purchased the space in 1983, for $151,000.

He opened the Old City Club, an old-fashioned private club. Although it was mostly a gathering place for members, Neely said there are accounts of it hosting performing artists, including events to promote operas being performed at the Tennessee Theatre. “I remember reading about some kind of promotion for Romeo and Juliet, and they had Juliet up on the balcony in the mezzanine,” Neely said. “So it was used a little bit with Kendrick's enthusiastic approval to promote the Tennessee Theatre and its events even 40 years ago.”

From the Ground Up

Standing below that same balcony on Tuesday, Hancock noted the engraved stone on it that still says “Old City Club.” It sits at the end of the old bank lobby area, just above the old bank vault. This space, Hancock said, will be used for small events like pre- or post-show receptions.

“​​We'll have some integrated, very simple sound and lighting, and we'll be able to set up chairs in a couple different configurations to accommodate for small performances, catered events, you name it,” she said.

The vault with its massive steel door will be retained and turned into a hallway leading to bathrooms. The decorative plaster bas-reliefs that adorn the walls with flowers and clamshells and other designs date from the 1923 construction and will be retained.

Stairs next to the vault lead up to the mezzanine level — technically the building’s second floor — which will be built into a private lounge area for major donors and patrons, with a bar and bathrooms. Hancock said it could also be used as a VIP area for events like the Big Ears Festival. It will connect through a door at the back of the building into the orchestra level of the theater.

Up on the third floor will be the primary public space in the new building, which will be accessible from the theater’s balcony level. It will include an additional full bar, taking some of the pressure off the lobby drink lines before shows and during intermissions. It will also include additional bathrooms, which Hancock said have long been needed.

“Right now, in the existing theater, we have about 20 toilets for women,” she said. “We’re adding 10 more up here, so 50 percent more women’s restrooms.” There will also be another six men’s stalls. 

The upper floors don’t have the historic features of the lobby, so they will be all new construction. Hancock said the design won’t try to match or replicate that of the ornate theater, but will be in a complementary mode.

“This is a separate historic building, it’s going to have its own identity and its own decor theme,” she said.

The fourth floor will provide something else the Tennessee has long needed: a space for rehearsals, whether by visiting orchestras or theater companies working on blocking. The space is about as deep as the theater’s stage is wide and will be given the same flooring as the stage, making it a good proxy for those putting on a show. 

“When our Broadway shows come to town, that first load-in day the stage is really busy with a lot of activity and set-up,” Hancock said. “The orchestras for Broadway (shows), they have nowhere to rehearse except in that lower lounge between our bathrooms — which, again, is not ideal.”

When the rehearsal space isn’t being used by visiting performers, she said it will be available for the theater’s summer camp programs and other kinds of educational performance activities. 

The fifth floor will be administrative office space for some of the theater’s staff of about 25 people. It will also include a small board room.

As for the recently acquired sixth floor, Hancock said there are ideas in the offing but nothing she can talk about yet. 

She said the expansion into adjacent buildings has been a common phenomenon among historic theaters across the country, as they try to serve the needs of modern productions and audiences alike.

“The Tivoli in Chattanooga has done almost exactly the same thing, they purchased a huge amount of property and an adjacent building, and they’re expanding,” she said. “The Orpheum in Memphis did this probably a decade ago.”

Neely is enthusiastic about the plans to bring the two historic properties together in common cause. “It’s a cool thing to do, and I think pretty unusual, to have a nonadjacent building connected to another historic building,” he said. “And that you can use both of them as a step toward making the Tennessee Theatre kind of a full performing arts center.”

Hancock said the ultimate beneficiaries are the performers and theatergoers who can enjoy the theaters’ irreplicable ambiance in comfort and style. 

“We talk about this all the time, that those of us who work here now are privileged to be the caretakers of this incredible asset in this one little slice of time,” she said. “There were people before us, and there will be people after us. So how can we make sure that the Tennessee Theatre is set up for success in the long run?”