NASHVILLE (AP) - A Texas-based development company has canceled plans to convert the existing Nashville Convention Center into a new medical trade center.

The Tennessean reported (http://tnne.ws/STT5Yd) Thursday that Bill Winsor, CEO of the Dallas Market Center, said in an email that they would be announcing the formal suspension of the project.

With a new convention center opening in downtown, the plan was to convert the old facility into an eight-story center for distributors of medical products and technology.

Winsor said that only 400,000 square feet of the building was preleased, which fell short of their goal needed to get financing for the project.