The Town of Cary – which has mushroomed into North Carolina’s seventh-largest city – has a regional shopping mall, a big-box complex, plenty of neighborhood retail centers. All to be expected. What still has a potential to surprise and delight is, ironically, the compact original town core that spreads out from the intersection of Chatham and Academy streets. There are interesting shops, picturesque old homes, good restaurants of several kinds, a train station and handsome streetscapes.

Along East Chatham, there used to be as well no shortage of places to buy auto parts. But the building that housed one such store was originally Cary’s first indoor movie theater. Now, the town will roll back the clock and a theater will emerge again.

Together with the Arts Center in the old Cary Elementary School and the Page-Walker Arts & History Center in a former railroad hotel, the resurrected movie theater will give downtown Cary three attractive town-owned cultural venues, all within walking distance. Visitors and patrons welcome!