Purvis Investments has bought the 122-year-old Stavely Building, on the corner of Bond and Jetty Sts.
Company director Bruce Purvis said he hoped the sale would end speculation over the building's future.
The company had "no intention of pulling it down, put it that way".
"We are aware that some people have been concerned about it, but we very much like the building, and we would like to preserve it," Mr Purvis said.
He would not say how much the company would pay for the building and could not say how the property might be developed.
Engineers were still assessing the structure.
The interior was "in quite a state" and the roof was destroyed after a suspicious fire in March 2008.
A new roof would be built to help arrest deterioration.
The facades, which are protected in the Dunedin City Council district plan, looked "pretty good".
The company had limited experience with historic buldings, but would discuss its plans with the New Zealand Historic Places Trust.
"It will be a challenge, certainly, but we would like to get it right," Mr Purvis said.
Historic Places Trust Otago Southland branch manager Owen Graham welcomed any sympathetic development for the building.
He urged the new owner to make repairing the roof a priority.
Trust officials had not visited it since soon after the fire, but would be interested in assessing the damage from the weather to the interior or the facades.
Southern Heritage Trust trustee Ann Barsby said the brick and plaster building was on a high-profile site and in an area already of interest to sympathetic developers.
Protection might make commercial sense.
POS Developments still owns the building.
Company director Lauchlan Chisholm confirmed the sale and said the contract should be completed by the end of the month.
