The historic Morris Memorial Building has sold for $6 million, according to documents from the Davidson County Register of Deeds.
The National Baptist Convention, owner of the Morris for more than a century, signed the sale papers with buyer 330 DrMLKJr Blvd LLC on Dec. 7. The LLC also recorded a loan from Texas-based Virtue Private Client LLC, which has local ties.
The buyer LLC's manager is Michael Winarski. Winarski owns Brentwood-based WIN Building Group and WIN Development.
The loan from Virtue to 330 DrMLKJr Blvd LLC is due on Dec. 19.
The historic downtown building could have been a civil rights center. Instead it's slated to become a hotel.
A source told Scene sister publication the Nashville Post in November that an LLC affiliated with Nashville-based hotel development company Imagine Hospitality was under contract to purchase the property and planned to revive the building as a boutique hotel. That sale has not yet happened, according to available documents. But the source confirmed the plans to purchase the building are still in the works.
Kal Patel, CEO of Imagine Hospitality, declined to comment on the deal.
The building, located at 330 Dr. Martin L. King Jr. Blvd., is designated on the National Register of Historic Places and is billed as the only building left in downtown Nashville originally associated with the Historic Black Business District. It was built on land where Black people were once sold into slavery.
Former Mayor John Cooper was working on acquiring the building, but a top adviser focused on the effort, Fabian Bedne, told the Mayor Freddie O’Connell's incoming administration that the acquisition was stalled due to costly repairs needed to occupy the building.
There have been recent efforts by Councilmember Zulfat Suara to have Metro reconsider purchasing the building. O’Connell has said he’s open to a public-private partnership of some kind.
This article was first published by our sister publication, the Nashville Post.
