The 50-year-old studio is part of an office building at 30 Music Square West that was sold to local Bravo Development this summer for $4 million. Bravo had plans to either sell the building to a new buyer or to raze it in order to allow for new development on the site. Preservationists, musicians and fans - including musician Ben Folds (who has rented Studio A for years and regularly produces artists in the space) - built a grassroots campaign to save the studio that gained national attention.

Now area philanthropist Aubrey Preston has stepped in, forming a trust in order to purchase and preserve the property. AMT Trust is currently under contract to pay $5.6 million for the property.

This isn't Preston's first preservation project. He was previously involved in revamping the historic Franklin Theatre as well as the nearby Leipers Fork area. He is also working with the Americana Music Association to create a tourist region called the multistate Americana Music Triangle, which will encompass an area from Tennessee to New Orleans.

In an interview with industry magazine MusicRow, Preston called the impending destruction of Studio A in favor of condos or other development on the site a "disaster for our town."

For Preston, this wasn't any ordinary building. His interest in the space, he said, "comes from my appreciation of the history of American music and the role that Studio A played in that."