SAN JOSE — A fitness center is poised to open in downtown San Jose now that an East Bay company has purchased the site of a long-time furniture store that’s advertising closeout sales.

KSP Holdings, an affiliate of Pleasanton-based Leisure Sports, has bought a three-story building originally built in the 19th century and that since 1957 has been the site of Hank Coca’s Furniture store.

The buyers paid $6.5 million for the building, Santa Clara County records show. The purchase closed on June 15.

The transaction was arranged through Ritchie Commercial, a San Jose-based realty brokerage.

The historic landmark totals 43,000 square feet, a brochure from Ritchie Commercial stated. It also includes a basement.

Constructed in 1883, the building was used as an Odd Fellows Lodge, the Ritchie brochure stated.

“The three-story Italianate Oddfellows Building at the corner of Santa Clara and Third streets” is “the best remaining example of downtown commercial architecture of the 1870s and 1880s” in downtown San Jose’s historic district, according to the National Register of Historic Places.

The structure has striking interiors, according to the Ritchie brochure.

“Most of the original details remain, including regal lodge meeting halls with 22-foot-high ceilings,” the brochure stated.

Leisure Sports’ brands include Club Sport, Renaissance Club Sport and The Studio. The company didn’t respond to requests for a comment about its new downtown San Jose location.

“It’s an incredibly special building,” said Scott Knies, executive director of the San Jose Downtown Association. “There used to be a boxing gym upstairs. It’s exciting to see a recreation use going in there.”

The deal means that two historic buildings at opposite ends of this block on East Santa Clara Street are in position to be spruced up in a big way.

At 52 E. Santa Clara St. and South Second Street, the long-dormant Toons nightclub is being revived as an arcade-bar nightspot by entrepreneurs who are encouraged by what they perceive as big improvements in the urban core of the Bay Area’s largest city. Known as the De Saisset building, which was constructed in 1900, that property could re-open this year as a new entertainment and nightlife spot.

Plus, several small retail businesses between the two prominent historic structures are doing a brisk business, according to Mark Ritchie, president of Ritchie Commercial.

“That whole block is being transformed,” Ritchie said. “It’s a nice block, it has a nice feel to it.”

Other upgrades are underway along Santa Clara Street, for a long-neglected stretch of downtown San Jose.

The improvements are occurring ahead of a future BART line whose trains would zip beneath that corridor and link to Diridon Station, an area where Google is planning a transit-oriented village.

Even more company expansions could occur when Adobe Systems fills a fourth tower that would rise next to the cloud services titan’s existing three-building downtown San Jose campus.

A growing corporate presence in downtown San Jose could bring more potential customers for the fitness center.

“Across the street, the old YWCA building was renovated and turned into the Clariana hotel, you have the Bank of Italy building upgrade, the old Bank of the West Building, the old Woolworth’s building,” Knies said. “You have a lot of renovations along Santa Clara Street and in the historic district of San Jose.”