In April 2006 UT announced that it was considering purchasing the former Albers Drug Company building, located off Cumberland Avenue adjacent to Tyson Park, most recently occupied by Metron North America. UT had budgeted $3 million to construct a warehouse at the Middlebrook Pike building for use by University Housing and the libraries, but the Metron facility, which contained 32,100 square feet of warehouse space, was a more desirable location and included also a technologically advanced building of 42,300 square feet and 11 acres of land.
Metron closed unexpectedly in September 2005 after losing one of their major clients, DIRECTV. Metron had been in business since 1983, providing distribution, sales, and marketing in the consumer electronics business. It employed over two hundred people at the time of its closure. The 11-acre site contained 354 parking spaces, with space for some 300 more. In May 2006 Wells Fargo Equipment Finance Inc. filed a petition in US Bankruptcy Court claiming that Vulcan Success Systems, a company led by former Metron Employees, which purchased the building in 1998 for $3 million and rented it to Metron, owed $834,174. The funds were awarded to Wells Fargo.
UT still planned to offer $5.5 million for the land and buildings, regardless of the legalities, but the process of acquisition was slowed. In July, following an agreement between Vulcan and Wells Fargo, the bankruptcy court dismissed the bankruptcy case against Vulcan and ruled that the sale process could go forward.
In November 2007 Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration Denise Barlow announced that the Office of Information Technology would relocate to the facility from space in Dunford Hall, Stokely Management Center, and Andy Holt Tower, to free on-campus space for academic programs and that the Music Department would be a principal occupant of freed space in Dunford Hall during the construction of the new Natalie L. Haslam Music Center.