Frankston Mechanics' Institute, located at 1 Plowman Place in the Frankston Central Business District (CBD), which was established in 1880, is the oldest public building in the suburb. It was expanded in 1915 with an addition to its street frontage, which is now the oldest extant part of the building. According to the Victorian Heritage Database, it was once the site of the first permanent building in the Frankston area, a pub named the Cannanuke Inn, built in the mid-1840s. The use of the site as a meeting place also pre-dates European settlement of Frankston, and was used by the Indigenous Australian clans of the Bunurong tribe on the Mornington Peninsula for corroborees and as a trading place.