Hard Rock Cafe to be filled with music again after Beale Street site sold. What's planned?

The Rock 'n' Soul Museum and Memphis Music Hall of Fame will have a permanent home on Beale Street. The organization that operates both entities, Rock 'n' Soul Inc., finalized the purchase of a 24,000-square-foot, two-story building at Beale and Second Street earlier this week.

On Thursday afternoon, a press conference was held outside the property, located at 126 Beale. The event, hosted by Memphis Music Hall of Fame member Priscilla Presley, saw Rock 'n' Soul Inc. President John Doyle and several of the organization’s philanthropic benefactors celebrate the purchase and reveal long-term plans for the site.

Memphis Rock 'n' Soul Inc. is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit that operates the Smithsonian Institution-branded Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum, which opened in 2000 in the former Gibson guitar factory, and later moved to the FedExForum administration building in 2004. It also runs the Memphis Music Hall of Fame, which launched in 2012 and opened its physical museum space inside 126 Beale in 2015.

That property had long been owned by the Lansky family, the noted Memphis clothiers. Nightclub chain Hard Rock Cafe had been the building’s anchor tenant since 2014. After the COVID-19 pandemic, Lansky Brothers — which had a retail outlet at 126 Beale — contracted the business to its location in The Peabody hotel. Then, in the summer of 2023, Hard Rock Cafe announced it would be closing and departing the space, leaving the Memphis Music Hall of Fame as the building’s only occupant.

“We got a one-month notification in June 2023, that Hard Rock was leaving,” Doyle said. “That’s when we knew we had a potential problem, as the Lansky family said that it was likely the building would be going up for sale.”

How $5 million was raised to buy Beale Street property

The Memphis Music Hall of Fame had been operating on a yearly lease, but Doyle added that “we had already been in discussions, as a board, about the long-term future of the entire organization and how we could expand our mission and do more from a programming standpoint. A lot of that focused on having more space and a building of our own.”

Doyle and the Rock ‘n' Soul board immediately began making efforts to raise the $5 million purchase price for 126 Beale. “With so many [philanthropic] projects in Memphis right now — the Brooks Museum, the Metal Museum, the Civil Rights Museum expansion — there was a lot of competition out there,” Doyle said. “We really needed a leadership gift, someone to step forward to show that this was a good project.”

Memphis businessman and Gibson Companies CEO J.W. Gibson and his wife, Kathy, took the initiative, pledging $1 million to the Rock ‘n’ Soul effort last year. Gibson, who serves as chairman of the Rock ‘n’ Soul foundation board, said the decision to contribute was bigger than just the museum and hall of fame.

"It’s Memphis music that I’m committed to, and that I think is sorely missing tremendous opportunities year after year," Gibson said. “Since I’ve been on the board, I've preaching the notion that we need to take advantage of the talent that Memphis has and the history we have. Memphis music is substantial to the music industry internationally. However, locally, what are we doing to uplift that industry, to support that industry? We saw an opportunity here."

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With the Gibsons' pledge, Doyle and the organization were able to secure other million-dollar-plus donations from the Assisi Foundation of Memphis and Mike and Linda Curb. Curb — the former lieutenant governor of California and owner of Curb Records — has been active in music philanthropy across Tennessee. In Memphis, the Curbs have supported the preservation and activation of Elvis Presley’s former home on Audubon Drive, and the establishment of the Mike Curb School of Music at Rhodes College. Other major supporters for the purchase of 126 Beale St. include the Lansky family, Melissa and Kevin McEniry, Memphis Tourism and the late Orpheum head, Pat Halloran.

With the $5 million in funding secured in early 2024, Rock ‘n’ Soul Inc. completed the purchase of 126 Beale on March 20, with the deed announced publicly on March 27.

Plans for the new Downtown Memphis music center

The building itself will be renamed the “J.W. and Kathy Gibson Center for Music.” As part of the Curb family’s gift — totaling $2.5 million — the former Hard Rock Cafe will become the “Mike & Linda Curb Music Center.” According to a statement from Rock ‘n’ Soul Inc., the performance space will offer a facility for “musician workshops, free rehearsal space for musicians, guest speakers, music education and summer camps for students, documentary screenings and even more music on Beale Street.”

“Creating an economic development ecosystem through tourism is great," said Gibson. "But with the center, we will also have an opportunity to address our community. Today’s music climate in Memphis has a tremendous amount of youth who are talented, but they don’t have the resources being made available to them. This center will do all it can to be of some assistance from a resource perspective."

Additionally, the purchase of the building will ultimately allow the Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum to relocate to 126 Beale. Currently, the museum has five years left on its lease with the Memphis Grizzlies and FedExForum. “Our deal with the Grizzlies runs until 2029,” Doyle said. “They’ve allowed us to be there for 20 years, [rent] free and utility free and have been the most incredible landlords ever. But we are coming to the end of the agreement with them in a few years, so we wanted to plan ahead.”

While the Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum could stay at the FedExForum site until 2029, Doyle expects the relocation of the museum to come as early as late 2026 or early 2027.

Rock ‘n’ Soul Inc. has already kicked off the second phase of its capital campaign to come up with the estimated $10 million in funding that will be needed “to renovate the building and relocate the museum the way we want to at 126 Beale," Doyle said.

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The building, which covers a city block at Second Street between Beale Street and Peabody Place, dramatically expands Rock 'n' Soul's total capacity, allowing for increased attendance, a larger gift shop, as well as opportunities for paid parking on the property which will "help increase earned revenue for the building’s maintenance and utilities, as well as expanded staff to grow programming."

Rock ‘n’ Soul is anticipating a two-year campaign to raise the money for its second phase. In the meantime, the Mike & Linda Curb Music Center will be readied for use in the coming months.

"The Hard Rock left most of its sound and lighting and IT and AV equipment behind, so it could be a fully functional thing right away,” Doyle said. “We will want to brand it properly. But we won’t hesitate to utilize it in the next six months.”

Prior to the press conference, on Wednesday, Priscilla Presley joined Doyle and Gibson during a trip to Nashville to visit with Tennessee state representatives to promote the Rock ‘n’ Soul initiative. Presley called the purchase of the building at 126 Beale, “a tremendous win for both Beale Street Memphis Entertainment District and the Rock 'n' Soul Museum.”

“I consider Memphis to be my hometown, and I will always support Memphis music," Presley added. "It was my honor to have been asked by John Doyle and J.W. Gibson to call on Tennessee state legislators for their support of this important effort.”

With the purchase of the building complete, Doyle and the Rock ‘n’ Soul organization will turn their attention to nominating and selecting the 2024 class for the Memphis Music Hall of Fame. The announcement of the next class of honorees is expected in mid-summer, with induction ceremonies slated for late September at the Cannon Center for the Performing Arts.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Hard Rock Cafe on Beale to become Memphis music center: What's planned?