By this time next year, an open house is expected to be held at the old Russellville theater.

With over a quarter of a million dollars to spend-- grant monies received last year through Renaissance and the Carpenter foundation-- both Main Street Russellville and the Russellville Arts Council are working diligently to bring to the community a multi-purpose facility.

It will rank with the most significant accomplishments of the past few decades.

Cinema, live theatre, musical productions, all these can be looked to with the completion of the project.

An architect has been hired and is currently designing a plan for phase one, which will see a new interior, stage, restrooms, lobby, dressing rooms, seating and a structurally sound roof.

"We are trying to get as much as we can out of the funds we already have," said County Attorney Tom Noe, who has been involved with the Arts Council since its beginning.

"We are quite excited about all the up and coming renovations," said Noe. "We had a meeting two weeks ago with the selected architect, and he was going to produce a plan which would allow us to utilize our $334,000 budget."

Noe said they know the project would need additional funding for completion, but they were going to concentrate on phase one first.

"This time next year we should finish the first phase," he said. "Then we will focus on the secondary funding which will be needed to finish the rest."