Details are emerging related to the effort to reinvent downtown’s 100-year-old Morris Memorial Building with a hotel and speakeasy-esque bar — with decor to pay tribute to the structure’s Black-American history.
According to a document submitted to the Metro Planning Department, On Edge Hospitality LLC seeks a 128-room boutique hotel with a roughly 7,000-square foot-bar (billed as a speakeasy on the document) to be located in the basement. The LLC paid $10 million for the five-story building in December 2023 (read more here), Metro records note.
Franklin-based Consortium (owned by Paul Bass) will serve as the designer and architect.
The document notes the team will go before the Metro Planning Commission on Sept. 12 to seek concept plan approval.
Located at 330 Dr. Martin L. King Jr. Blvd., the building was once eyed for purchase by Metro Government for use as a civil rights museum. It is designated on the National Register of Historic Places and is billed as the only building in downtown Nashville originally associated with the city’s Historic Black Business District.
Black-owned architecture firm McKissack & McKissack designed the building, which sits on land on which Black individuals were once sold into slavery.
On Edge Hospitality LLC is affiliated with Imagine Hospitality, for which Kal Patel serves as CEO.
“I love the building and the history behind it,” Patel told the Post following at the time of the December transaction. “We want to build a boutique hotel and make sure that what we do still honors the history of the Black community.”
In the past, Metro made efforts to purchase the building and reinvent it as a civil rights museum. Those efforts failed to gain traction, however.
David Ewing, a local historian, told the Post he is serving as historical consultant to the development company. Ewing was a member of the team that then-Mayor David Briley appointed in 2019 to determine if Metro should buy the building.
“The Morris Memorial Building is one of my favorite buildings in the city,” said Ewing, who is a member of a church that is affiliated with the National Baptist Convention, USA that sold the building to Imagine Hospitality. “It is the Black Ryman Auditorium offering great architecture and incredible history.
“Imagine Hospitality is saving this grand structure and will turn it into a boutique hotel that pays tribute to its history of the building and the old African-American business district that was on Fourth Avenue.”
Ewing said this section of downtown is not activated in the evening. A hotel will bring locals and tourists to the area, which currently is used for State and Metro offices and parking garages, he said.
The property sits within Metro Councilmember Jacob Kupin’s District 19.
“My No. 1 goal is securing the preservation of the building [and] … to make sure that the building continues to tell its story.”
