The Dallas City Council agreed Wednesday to sell a Routh Street dead-end to the Katy Trail Ice House for almost a quarter of a million dollars — over the objections of the council member who represents that part of town.

The Ice House agreed to pay the city $225,358 for the small stretch of Routh that runs into the trail off Woodrow Avenue, where the red Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad car's parked. The zoning consultants from Dallas firm Masterplan, representing the popular hangout's ownership, said the Ice House wants to merge the two pieces of properties it owns along the trail that are divided by the dead-end. Dallas Cothrum, Masterplan's CEO, said the Ice House needs to expand its kitchen.

Moreover, the bar's owners have said they will spend some $400,000 to make drainage and paving improvements to that stretch of Routh, which can be muddy even after days without rain. They're also vowing to plant new lighting and landscape along that section of the Katy Trail, and provide easy access for pedestrians and emergency vehicles often staring at parked cars along that stretch of Routh — where, once, the most popular destination was the Jet Set, a swingers' club.

"It's a win-win situation for the city, which will not be burdened by cost, and for Katy Trail," Robin Baldock, Friends of the Katy Trail's executive director, told the council Wednesday. "The Ice House has been a huge asset to the community."

Council member Philip Kingston doesn't argue with that. He told his colleagues he's a big fan of the Ice House, which he called an "excellent" and "vibrant" business.

Nevertheless, he asked them to vote against selling the land to the bar, despite its promise of much-needed improvements to the trail's entrance. Said Kingston, the bar really just wants the land to expand its operations, which the council member said would upset residents of the across-the-trail Park Towers who have long complained about the noise coming from the Ice House, going so far as to complain to the police and the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission five years ago.

"I love the Ice House, but there is a balance that has been achieved in that neighborhood over the course of several years," Kingston said. "I'm extremely worried expansion would upset that balance."

As far as Kingston's concerned, the city — the Park and Recreation Department, specifically — should be on the hook for making those fixes to the Routh Street dead-end. But northwest Dallas' Jennifer Staubach Gates reminded her colleague there's no money for that. And besides, she said, there are needs far higher on the to-do list than what Kingston called a "mudhole" in front of the Ice House.

"When we have someone willing to make the investment," Gates said, "it's a gift the city should be considering."

Cothrum told the council the Ice House will not build on the dead-end, and said it will actually shutter its smaller second building along the trail and ultimately shrink its total footprint from 10,000 square feet to about 8,000 square feet. But when pressed by council members about expansion plans, Cothrum did say there would likely be more tables added to the oft-packed patio.

Pleasant Grove's Rickey Callahan, concurring with past and present Friends of the Katy Trail executive directors, said he believed the deal was too good to turn away: "The city's getting a whole lot for this."

Kingston again pleaded with colleagues to vote against the deal: "We're messing with a formula here that only recently reached equilibrium." But in the end, he was outvoted 9-6.