Dr. J. C. Vinson, a urologist, served in World War I at Camp Beauregard in Louisiana. He had considerable realty holdings and in 1917, opened this building at 711 Florida Ave. That year, the first two major tenants were The Tampa Furniture Co. and the Starr Piano Co. As with many early-century multi-purpose structures, this building had many business tenants and purposes over its 100-year history.

In 1947, Morrison’s Cafeteria moved here from its former location at 608 N Florida, a block away, and fed hungry downtowners until 1969. The building sat vacant until 1976, when the Fairmont Company completed a $350,000 renovation on the 30,000 sq. ft. structure. They acquired the building from the Exchange Bancorporation, which had dropped plans to convert it into a bank operations center. The building deteriorated over the next few decades. One of the last tenants was Kenneth Jennings, a London’s Savile Row-trained Bespoke tailor who made custom suits priced from $1200 - $2600. The remnants of his gold leaf sign remained on the window until the demolition of the building.  The building was sold in 2021, and permits for demolition were obtained for XSC Tampa Investment LLC. It was demolished in early 2022, and construction began for a 28-story mixed-use high rise to have retail space, lobbies, and common areas on the bottom floor, with six parking garage levels above it. The top 18 floors were to be apartments. By November 2023, three parking garage levels and the retail shell on the bottom floor had been built. Since that time, construction has halted. In early 2025, there had been no visual progress on the project

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