The Renton Chamber of Commerce is a big step closer to having a new office and visitors center downtown.

The Renton City Council Monday night approved $175,000 from the lodging tax to go toward a down payment on the landmark train depot on Burnett Avenue, now owned by Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad.

The lodging tax is designed to support the multibillion-dollar tourist industry throughout the state.

For years, the depot was the home of the Spirit of Washington Dinner Train and the kitchen where catered meals were prepared for the Spirit of Washington Event Center, now the Renton Pavilion Event Center at the Piazza.

The chamber had accumulated about $210,000 for a down payment, not enough to keep the mortgage payments at an acceptable level, based on the $840,000 price tag for the building, according to Bill Taylor, the chamber’s president and CEO.

Last week the chamber signed a purchase and sale agreement with Burlington Northern and will now move forward with the due diligence, including an appraisal, necessary before a final deal is signed.

If the process goes smoothly, the chamber could move from its current headquarters on Rainier Avenue South in late February, Taylor said.

“We will have a beautiful visitors center right in the heart of town, right where it belongs,” Taylor said Tuesday.

The chamber had hoped to find a location downtown as a “positive statement” about the business community’s support for downtown, he said.

The interior of the building is striking, with knotty pine on the walls. The bathrooms are “huge,” Taylor said. The chamber would need to do little to the interior as the office space is “more than adequate,” he said. The chamber would create space for a conference area and add a small kitchen for the chamber staff.

The purchase also includes a second building that includes the commercial-sized kitchen. The kitchen is now used by Rain City Catering, which operates the event center and provides the catered food. Rain City Catering will remain as a tenant of the chamber.

The chamber will use $150,000 toward the down payment and $25,000 for work on the outside, including signage, Taylor said. The grounds need cleaning up and some windows must be replaced, he said.

A 1 percent lodging tax is charged on all paid overnight stays in Renton, raising between $180,000 and $200,000 a year, said Taylor, one of the members of the Renton Lodging Tax Advisory Committee. The committee is chaired by City Council member King Parker.

The tax revenue is not comingled with city funds, Taylor said. The City Council approves all expenditures.

The money also goes to the Renton Visitor’s Connection, an effort of the chamber, and the Renton Community Marketing Campaign. The $175,000 that will go to the chamber has been accumulated over years, Taylor said.

The state law creating the lodging tax specifically calls out a visitors center as one of the uses for the tax, he said.

Taylor called the purchase “a major step forward” in advancing the mission of the chamber, whose headquarters has overlooked the Renton Municipal Airport for 50 years. The chamber has leased the building from the City of Renton, which wants the property for an airport-related use.

Taylor said he’s going to miss the airport, where chamber employees and visitors have watched Boeing 737s take off on a maiden voyage.

“That has just been magic,” he said.