PROVIDENCE — As of next week, the state may no longer be the owner of a building that houses a strip club.

The State Properties Committee yesterday authorized the Department of Transportation to sell One Franklin Square, the building that houses an adult entertainment venue called Club Desire on the first floor and, until April, housed office space for dozens of DOT employees on the second and third floors.

A closing is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, DOT legal counsel Michael Mitchell said yesterday.

The state is selling the building back to its previous owner — 57 Associates, an arm of the Paolino realty empire operated by Joseph Paolino, father of the former Providence mayor of the same name — for $2.3 million, the amount of an appraisal conducted in December by Newport Appraisal Group LLC.

The state paid $1.911 million in 2000 to acquire the building from 57 Associates by eminent domain.

Daniel Clarke, principal property management officer for the DOT, told the Properties Committee yesterday that the state sought bids on the sale and received just one, from the company that operates Club Desire — Atwells Realty Corp., whose owner is listed in state corporation records as Gerard DiSanto of Johnston. By law, if the state sells property it took by eminent domain, it must offer the former owner the right to buy it before selling it to anyone else.

The sale proceeds will go into a DOT account, where the state can use them as matching funds to attract additional federal money for road and bridge projects, DOT spokeswoman Heidi Cote said yesterday.

Cote said about 40 DOT employees worked in the building, but they relocated to offices elsewhere in April. She said 25 of the employees were “construction personnel” who now work at 339 Eddy St., in space the state is leasing from Brown University, and 14 more employees were “survey personnel” who now work out of 2 Capitol Hill.

The building sits on 30,246 square feet of land that 57 Associates is also buying. The state used the grounds as a staging area for construction materials and equipment in the Route 195 relocation project, but that space is no longer needed because construction in that area has concluded, Cote said.

Properties Committee members yesterday voiced relief that the state is getting the strip club off its hands.

“I’m glad it’s over,” said committee member Robert W. Kay.

After buying the building in 2000, the state tried to force Club Desire out, but the club owners went to court to request “relocation and reestablishment benefits,” former DOT Director James Capaldi wrote in a memo in December.

Club Desire agreed to pay the state $7,000 a month in rent, but the state waived the rent for at least 10 months, between April 2005 and January 2006, to compensate the club owners for a reported $95,000 worth of “fire-code renovations” made to the building.

Cote said yesterday that the club had been paying its rent in recent months.

As to what 57 Associates plans to do with the property, neither Paolino could be reached yesterday for comment. An employee who answered the phone yesterday at Paolino Properties said Joseph Paolino Sr. was out of town and not available by phone.

But Joseph Paolino Jr. told a reporter in January, “Paolino Properties has no interest in this property, does not want to buy the property and is not looking to do anything with the property.” In fact, he said 57 Associates had signed over the right of first refusal to Atwells Realty in 2004.

egudrais@projo.com