They’re also working with a consultant who specializes in historic, or heritage, tourism, a rapidly growing segment, to draw visitors interested in exploring black history. One possibility the consultant has suggested is establishing a bed and breakfast in the building.

Though drawing visitors from far and wide may seem farfetched, the Hampton House did just that in the late 1950s and early 1960s, an era in which legal segregation meant blacks had few great options for dining, staying over or congregating — activities which Hampton House, whose restaurant had white tablecloths, offered in an upscale, modern setting. Dubbed the “Social Center for the South,’’ the motel drew visitors from “all over,’’ said pianist Richard Strachan, who led its house band for years.

For locals, it was the place to show up, dressed to the nines, on a weekend night — and after church on Sundays — to dine or listen to first-rate jazz and R’n’B. Some famous musicians stayed at the Hampton House while performing in Miami Beach, where blacks were not permitted to stay overnight. Often they were persuaded to sit in with the house band for after-hours jams, Strachan said.

Celebrities who frequented, performed in or came through the Hampton House, Strachan and others have said, included sports stars like boxer Joe Louis and Wimbledon champion Althea Gibson; jazz greats like Sarah Vaughan and brothers Nat and Julian “Cannonball’’ Adderley; chanteuse Nancy Wilson and rhythm and blues singer LaVern Baker, later inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; and, of course, the greatest of them all, boxer Clay/Ali.

“He loved the swimming pool, he loved the music and he loved the food,’’ Strachan said.

From a booth in the motel, legendary Miami disk jockey China Valles broadcast jazz over WMBM.

Built in 1953 for $1 million by a white couple, Harry and Florence Markowitz, the motel boasted terrazzo floors, wrought-iron rails and detailing, and the clean, rectilinear architecture today popularly prized as MiMo, for Miami Modern. It was designed by a young architect, Robert Karl Frese, who would later be responsible for dozens of motels around the southeast for clients like Days Inn and Holiday Inn.

Originally called the Booker Terrace, the motel took the place of legendary but faded Overtown clubs and hotels like the Sir John, which would soon fall victim to urban renewal along with nearly every other important building in the historic heart of Miami’s black community. It was re-baptized Hampton House after the Markowitzes expanded and renovated the motel around 1961. That renovation added the MiMo-style concrete screens on the front that give the building its signature look.

It wasn’t all fun, though. Local members of the Congress for Racial Equality, a key civil rights group, met every week at the Hampton House and convened with King when he visited. Videotapes survive of two press conferences King gave at the Hampton House, in 1963 and 1964. He also gave an early version of his famed “I Have a Dream’’ speech at the Hampton House, as he did elsewhere.

Ironically, the end of segregation was the beginning of the end for the Hampton House. With integration, blacks could, and did, go anywhere to dine and recreate. As business dwindled, it hung on, barely, until 1976, mostly on the strength of takeout liquor-store sales, Strachan recalled.

By the early 2000s the shuttered, dilapidated motel was headed for demolition when Pinkney and a group of activists launched a campaign to save it. The county’s historic preservation board declared the main building a protected landmark in 2002, both for its history and its distinctive architecture, and the county purchased the entire block, including the area where the affordable housing is being built, for around $500,000.

Miami-Dade Commissioner Audrey Edmonson adopted the motel renovation as a pet cause. When plans appeared to stall, in part because of delays within the county bureaucracy, Edmondson said she “just had to push it through.’’

Though it’s just a shell, the Hampton House is worth salvaging because of the important place it held in Miami’s history, and not just for African-Americans, said the county’s preservation director, Kathleen Kauffman Slesnick.

“It’s incredibly valuable to this community,’’ she said. “By bringing it back, you bring back history. It’s not the building’s fault that we let it get to this point.’’