SBC to sell headquarters in Nashville amid legal expenses from sexual abuse investigation

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Friday, September 20, 2024

Amid decreasing revenue and mounting legal expenses stemming from investigating its handling of sexual abuse, Southern Baptist Convention officials have announced a plan to sell the denomination's seven-story headquarters in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, to help stabilize finances.

The sale of the building located at 901 Commerce Street has been under consideration for a while, according to The Tennessean. SBC Executive Committee Chairman Philip Robertson announced the sale after a regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday.

Robertson said members "authorized the president to execute a loan secured by the building and place the SBC building on the market."

Get Our Latest News for FREE

Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know.

Subscribe

Data cited by The Tennessean from the Nashville Planning Department shows that the building was last appraised in 2021 at $31.7 million. The convention spent $8 million to construct the building 40 years ago to house eight SBC entities. The project was built on land donated by Lifeway, which was then known as the Sunday School Board, according to former SBC Executive Committee President Frank S. Page. 

Brokers told the Nashville Business Journal that the property will be attractive to developers because it is located in Nashville Yards, one of the city's busiest and most highly watched development areas. 

The $1 billion development spearheaded by Southwest Value Partners is expected to open to the public in the next six months.

Among the planned features of the development are two luxury hotel properties with some 80,000 square feet of group and convention meeting space and a 4,500-capacity live music and event venue operated by AEG Presents known as The Pinnacle. It will also feature more than seven acres of activated open space, more than 2,000 residential units, more than 3 million square feet of office space along with restaurant and retail offerings.

"It is directly in the center of the entertainment district and the future of Nashville's business district," Eric Deems, a broker at Land Advisors, told the Nashville Business Journal.

In 2022, an independent investigation conducted by Guidepost Solutions found the denomination's leadership mishandled sexual abuse allegations, mistreated victims and advocates, engaged in an abusive pattern of intimidation and repeatedly resisted reforms aimed at making their churches safer largely to avoid liability.

"Our investigation revealed that, for many years, a few senior EC leaders, along with outside counsel, largely controlled the EC's response to these reports of abuse. They closely guarded information about abuse allegations and lawsuits, which were not shared with EC Trustees, and were singularly focused on avoiding liability for the SBC to the exclusion of other considerations," Guidepost Solutions investigators wrote in their 288-page report to the denomination's Sexual Abuse Task Force.

"In service of this goal, survivors and others who reported abuse were ignored, disbelieved, or met with the constant refrain that the SBC could take no action due to its polity regarding church autonomy — even if it meant that convicted molesters continued in ministry with no notice or warning to their current church or congregation."

Members of the SBC Executive Committee noted that the Guidepost Solutions report resulted in lawsuits and a U.S. Department of Justice investigation, which caused them to spend $12.1 million on lawyer fees between October 2020 and July 2024. 

Executive Committee's finance subcommittee chairman Adam Wyatt told Baptist Press this week that funds to cover the legal expenses came from the committee's reserve funds to “protect Cooperative Program dollars." 

The Guidepost Investigation into claims that SBC leaders mishandled credible allegations of sexual abuse against churches cost $3.1 million, while legal and task force expenses totaled $1.1 million, according to BP. Over $2 million was spent on case management, and another $2 million went towards the Justice Department investigation. 

In addition to the sale of their headquarters, the SBC Executive Committee also approved the creation of a new department that will focus on abuse reform in the denomination.