The Garland City Council voted 7-1 on Tuesday to raze a century-old building on the downtown square, a move that will prove costly to the city's budget.

The city paid $428,500 for the building in 2013, boarded its windows and never used it. Now it will pay $88,000 to remove the building, perhaps before May.

The building is known as Crossman Block for the family that ran an insurance business there a generation ago. Its storefronts lost much of their charisma to stucco, add-ons and metal awnings.

"It is an eyesore," said Kerry Peavey, who has had a front-row seat to the building's decline as operator of his family's furniture store across Main Street. "The buildings have been unfunctional for years. Those buildings need to go. They should have gone years ago."

Many new residents and business owners agreed. At a Feb. 23 town hall event, 70 percent spoke in favor of removing the building. The ratio in favor of tear-down was nearly the same during more than two hours of public testimony Tuesday.

As the Crossman Block building has deteriorated, the city has unveiled new downtown developments. With Garland's core vibrant again, razing the building will double the available public space on the square.

Garland Mayor Douglas Athas

Mayor Douglas Athas had pressed this month to give investors a chance to upgrade the property. Before casting the lone vote against razing, Athas on Tuesday reminded council members of their vote to purchase the building.

"I did not vote to just throw it away, bulldoze it, throw taxpayer money away and put in grass," the mayor said.

Architect Norman Alston testified that about 8,500 square feet of the building was original and could be restored for about $1.3 million. As a contributor to history, Alston said, the building would be eligible for about $500,000 in historical tax credits.

"I think it's important both to the history of our town and to the vitality of downtown Garland," Alston said. "A park is a good thing, but right downtown and for the removal of important historic structures is not the way to achieve that."

Another $600,000 has been spent on asbestos and structural studies on the building and consultants for the redesign of the square. Two design proposals also went before council Tuesday, but neither was approved.

"None of these options have ever been presented to us without the building in place," council member Scott LeMay said. Staff will reconfigure, using the entire space. Construction is scheduled for 2019.

Assistant City Manager Rick Vasquez told the council March 6 that preservationists were fairly clear in their desire to restore the building. But their numbers and voice have dwindled since 2010, when a "Save Our Square" movement filled City Hall at the first mention of tearing down the building.

Louis Moore, who supported renovation and has led a movement to create the city's first historic residential district, told the council that something should be done in the building's memory.

"Think about doing something on the site that honors the Crossmans," Moore said.

Crossman descendant Kay Turner said she got tired of being a landlord and killing weeds behind the building. So she sold it to the Garland Civic Theatre in 1998. She was stunned that the city would have paid nearly a half-million for it 15 years later. And she was saddened by Tuesday's action.

"If I knew what was going to happen, I would have never sold the building," she told the council.