Window Treatment Crews in Franklin Commercial Historic District, Franklin, IN

Local Window Treatment Experience in Franklin Commercial Historic District

The building stock on Franklin's courthouse square

The district records 32 contributing buildings, listed in 1989, two years after the Martin Place residential district. The documented styles are Italianate, Romanesque and Classical Revival, mostly in two and three story commercial blocks with cast iron or masonry pilasters framing the bays. Landmarks inside the district include the 1924 Artcraft Theater, the Herriott-Clarke Building of 1853, the 1895 former City Hall and Opera House, and the Wigwam Mineola Tribe Building of about 1915. The Johnson County Courthouse itself is separately listed on the National Register. No lot dimension and no floor area figure is published for any of these buildings.

What matters for a treatment order is that the upper floors above the storefronts are in genuine residential and office use. In a city of 26,743 people that's an unusual condition, and it's part of why Franklin's owner occupancy sits at 65.7 percent rather than higher. An apartment on the second floor of a masonry block built between 1850 and 1935 has deep window reveals, real inside mount depth, and openings that have moved with the building. A tenant fit out below it has none of those things. We measure the two floors as separate jobs, because that is what they are.

Storefront glass and upper floor openings: two conditions, one building

Ground level first. Storefront display glass on the Franklin square is typically set in a shallow modern frame inside a much older masonry opening, which means the depth available for an inside mount is often nothing like what the opening suggests from the sidewalk. A roller shade specified for that condition normally goes outside mount, to the face above the storefront line, with a fascia to close the top. Note the constraint that catches people out: a reverse roll, where the fabric comes off the back of the tube to clear the frame, isn't compatible with a fascia. You pick one or the other.

Upper floors are the opposite problem. Deep masonry reveals give you real mounting depth and a clean inside mount, but the buildings are 90 to 175 years old and out of square throughout, so a three point measure and a diagonal check aren't optional. Height is the other issue. Lutron publishes larger light gaps for shades over 120 inches tall than the 3/4 inch per side it lists on Roller 20/64, and tall upper floor openings on a three story block on Jefferson Street get there easily. For an apartment over a lit square, that gap is the difference between dark and nearly dark.

What we specify around the Franklin square

The specification splits by floor, and so does the pricing. Retail frontage wants glare and fade control that keeps a display readable from the sidewalk, and NFRC attributes 40 to 60 percent of fading damage to UV, so a solar shade slows what happens to goods in a west facing window rather than stopping it. Residential upper floors want darkness and thermal help in masonry that has stood since as early as 1853. National ranges: motorized runs $300 to $1,500 per window installed, custom treatments $250 to $2,600, drapery $300 to $4,000. Lead time is 2 to 5 weeks, and IC 24-5-11 requires a written contract over $150 on residential work.

The square, the Artcraft and Franklin Community Schools

The district sits at the center of Franklin, bounded by Jackson and Jefferson Streets around the Johnson County Courthouse. The courthouse square is separately listed on the National Register in its own right, and Franklin is the only city in this set with a working nineteenth century county courthouse square. The Artcraft Theater has run on the square since 1924, and the district also holds the Herriott-Clarke Building of 1853 and the 1895 former City Hall and Opera House. Martin Place, the city's residential historic district, adjoins it directly. Households in the upper floor apartments are inside Franklin Community School Corporation, one district for the whole city.

What the Franklin Commercial district listing does and doesn't require

There's no association here, and no mandatory review of privately owned buildings was identified from the National Register listing alone. The 1989 listing recognizes 32 contributing buildings; it doesn't hand a committee authority over what a shop owner hangs in a window. We also found no local Franklin preservation ordinance imposing design review, so the district reads as honorific rather than regulatory. Be careful with that conclusion though: absence of evidence isn't proof, and a downtown facade grant or a commercial lease can carry conditions of its own even where the district doesn't. If you're a tenant on the square, read the lease before you order.

Window Treatment Services in Franklin Commercial Historic District

Every service Franklin Window Treatments offers across Franklin is available to Franklin Commercial Historic District homeowners.

Places We Cover Outside Franklin

Franklin Commercial Historic District is one of several Franklin communities we serve. We measure and install across Franklin, Johnson County, and surrounding areas.

Franklin Commercial Historic District Window Treatment FAQ

Questions we hear most often from Franklin Commercial Historic District homeowners.