After eight years in the real estate business, the city of Cleburne, Texas finally divested itself of one of its historic downtown buildings—at a significant loss.

On Tuesday night, the Cleburne City Council agreed to sell the old Royce’s Pharmacy building to an Arlington-based construction group for $100.

The group, led by John Dancer of Arlington, plan to repair the building, while maintaining its historic integrity, for use as a restaurant and/or retail shop on the ground floor and office space on the second.

The city purchased the 115-year-old building in 2007 for $150,000, planning to use it as a performing arts center. However city leaders later determined it was not suitable for such purpose. The performing arts center was later added on to the Cleburne Conference Center building while the Royce’s building sat empty.

The Johnson County Central Appraisal District lists the building’s appraised value and market value as $371,310.

City officials decided last year to sell the building, realizing it would sell at a loss. The hope, officials said, is to get the building restored and back on the tax rolls.

“I know some will look at the price we sold this for,” Cleburne Mayor Scott Cain said. “But this will serve as a catalyst in our hopes to revive downtown. These people have the expertise, the knowledge and the ability to bring this building back. I’ve spoken to the mayor in Fort Worth who spoke highly of them and they’ve restored a number of historic buildings in the Metroplex area.”

The only other bid on the building, which was $10, came from Cleburne businessman Tom Burkett, who owns Action Signs and Songbird Live, both of which are also in downtown.

Burkett said he had hoped to relocate Songbird Live to the building and open a music school upstairs.

“I have some other ideas and I still plan to open a music school,” Burkett said. “I’m disappointed but I wish the people who got the building the best of luck. It’s going to be a lot of work and cost to fix that place up and parking’s going to be a problem. So maybe the city did me a favor by turning my bid down.”

Matt Smith writes for the Cleburne (Texas) Times-Review.