Preservationists’ fight to save historic downtown recording studio is over

A fight spanning more than two years to save a historic downtown recording studio from demolition appears to be over.

On Tuesday, historic preservationist and architect Kyle Kessler announced that a stop-work order that had temporarily saved 152 Nassau Street from total destruction had been lifted, meaning crews will likely now finish the job they began in August.

The property is slated to become part of a Margaritaville resort tower.

The former recording studio’s current location, in fact, is expected to house the resort’s trash compactors and grease traps—salt in the wounds for those who sought to preserve this sliver of Atlanta’s musical legacy.

There is still a slight chance that Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, or perhaps even Jimmy Buffett, could intervene, Kessler wrote in the Facebook post announcing its court case had been settled.

That seems unlikely, though.

Preservationist group Historic Atlanta was diligent in its effort to halt the demo of 152 Nassau Street, garnering nearly 10,000 signatures in an online petition and even taking the City of Atlanta and Margaritaville’s developers to court to argue that a demolition permit was acquired “without any review by the public or even the city council.”

The structure’s history, however, survives at the Nassau Street Sessions website.