From
http://www.rareelvispresley.com/"Exciting news! The Chisca Hotel near Beale Street has been saved and will be renovated. According to our information, the radio station rooms, where Dewey Phillips worked and where he was the first DJ ever to play an Elvis song plus conduct the first interview with Elvis, will be restored and be open for tours. According to the Commercial Appeal, a local investor group closed on a $900,000 purchase of the long-neglected hotel Friday from the Church of God in Christ. Developers have said the project would cost about $20 million, including $17 million in private investment, if the 99-year-old original building is only redeveloped. Expanding the work to include a 1960s era motor court addition would push the total to $24 million, including $21 million private. The City Council has committed $2 million to blight remediation on the project, and the Downtown Parking Authority would spend another $1 million to buy and renovate a parking garage that serves the site." All parties involved did the right thing by saving this building and keeping it from possibly turning into another generic, unexciting corporate structure we are all too familiar with these days. By recognizing that this was where WHBQ and Dewey Phillips not only played Elvis for the first time on the radio, but also broadcast one of the most successful R&B radio programs of that time, they are furthering the preservation of significant period in America's post-war history. Good on them. If this is executed properly it could bring even more dollars into the historic Beale Street area, not to mention giving Elvis fans another reason to return to Memphis.
AND they got that entire building for under a million dollars!!! Compared to the town I live in that is an absolute steal!!