Summer was just getting started when Dallas City Council member Jesse Moreno set off alarm bells about a vacant city-owned building that had been vandalized and ravaged just blocks from City Hall.

That this happened under the noses of city leaders was embarrassing, but even worse, it was expensive. The building at 711 S. St. Paul St. was no longer suitable for public use, covered in graffiti, with its plumbing and wiring ripped out and its rooms reeking of feces and urine. It required a cleaning company to remove the biohazards throughout.

By Aug. 28, after intense debate, the City Council voted to sell the building at auction.

If you interact with City Hall regularly, you know that glaciers move faster. By those standards, the council’s decision to liquidate the property three months after the squatting and the vandalism came to its attention is, well, progress.

So we couldn’t help but sigh in frustration when Dallas preservationists stepped in to say this building that no one but squatters paid any mind to for so long — not city officials, not the preservationists — is in a historic district recognized by the National Register of Historic Places. Wouldn’t it be a shame if it were demolished? The leader of a preservation group suggested the city advertise the availability of state and federal preservation tax credits along with the property.

Why complicate the matter? The city was right to stick to a basic advertisement for an auction Oct. 2. Find out what the market wants and sell off the property. Take care of this nuisance to residents and business owners.

Under the council’s chosen two-tier bidding process, potential buyers will offer a price for the property as-is and one for just the land, with the understanding that the city would demolish the building before transferring the property.

As for this historic building, we’re not talking about John Neely Bryan’s original cabin here. The low-slung structure was built in 1947 and served as a regional plant for American Optical, an eyewear company. Not exactly the stuff of postcards (or city manager recruitment brochures).

Perhaps there is a developer out there who would pay top dollar for an anonymous building that has been stripped of the infrastructure that made it functional — maybe someone who is passionate about the history of American eyewear manufacturing. That developer would have to apply for and agree to the strings attached to preservation tax credits, which require that properties be rehabilitated according to meticulous federal standards. That seems unlikely.

The city’s economic development department is right when it says that a one-story building is not the highest and best use for the land. This is an area that is set to be transformed by the redevelopment of the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center and where higher density is planned.

We often lament how the city doesn’t take care of its history, but the drama with 711 S. St. Paul St. is a chapter that City Hall should be eager to close.

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