The Royal Palm Tavern and two other properties on Dryden Road were sold to Collegetown landowner John Novarr for $3,750,000 about a year before management announced the bar would close, according to documents obtained by The Sun.

The bar, commonly known as the Palms, will likely be converted at least partially to housing, Novarr said on Sunday. He emphasized, however, that there are no set plans for the location.

In January, bar owner Joe Leonardo said that the Palms would close partly as a result of changes in drinking habits, saying that students now spend much less time in Collegetown bars than they did 10 years ago. But in December 2010, Leonardo sold the location — as well as 213 Dryden Rd. and 215 Dryden Rd. — to “Dry-Lin,” Novarr’s limited liability corporation, for far more than its assessed value, the documents show.

According to information from the Tompkins County Department of Assessment, the Palms and Dryden properties were collectively sold for more than three times their assessed value. Together, the locations were assessed at about $800,000.

On Sunday, Novarr said that “there will probably be a housing component” to the future development at 209 Dryden Rd., which will house the Palms until it closes in late February.

“We didn’t really know at the time what we were going to do with the property, but it’s a great location and we want to make sure we develop it properly,” Novarr said. “When we know, we’ll go to the city for site plan review and try to get it reviewed."

Novarr is also building a model apartment complex at the former Kraftees location to showcase his new Collegetown Terrace development project. Collegetown Terrace will create about 589 additional bedrooms and 16 new buildings in the area between East State Street, South Quarry Street, Valentine Place and the edge of Six Mile Creek Gorge.

Novarr said he could not speculate as to why Leonardo decided the bar was no longer financially sustainable. Leonardo did not return a request for comment Sunday.

“I’m not in the bar business, and I don’t know what it takes to run a successful bar in Collegetown,” Novarr said. “What we’re trying to do is make sense, real estate-wise, of what to put on that block.”

For a long time, a popular Collegetown bar seemed to fit that bill. For 71 years, the Leonardos maintained a family-owned business that generated a loyal and passionate alumni base.

“The Palms has been the Palms for as long as people can remember,” Chris Mejia ’11, who is planning return to the bar before it closes, told The Sun in January. “Some of my fondest memories were at the Royal Palm. It’s the place where we celebrated in the good times and drowned our sorrows in the bad.”

But according to Leonardo, the Palms simply became financially unsustainable.

The last day the bar is in business “is going to be tough,” he told The Sun in January. “But it’s just not feasible any more.”