LEWISTON – A lawyer for a Lewiston real estate company said she intends to appeal a jury decision ordering the realty to pay $650,000 to a pool hall that went out of business seven years ago.

An eight-member jury on Friday ruled that Gendron Realty was responsible for the collapse of Bureau’s Billiards, a pool hall and nightclub owned by Tommy Bureau of Lewiston.

The jury ordered Gendron Realty to reimburse Bureau for the money he invested in the business, and to pay him profits he claimed he could have made if he hadn’t been forced to close because of a construction project that Gendron failed to discuss with him when he signed his lease.

Martica Douglas, the lawyer for Gendron, said she plans to ask for a mistrial, but declined to discuss on what grounds. “By no means do we regard this as the final outcome,” she said. “It is just another chapter in a long saga.”

Bureau signed a lease in 1994 to rent space in a Lisbon Street building owned by Gendron Realty. In his lawsuit, Bureau said Gendron failed to notify him about plans by the state to take a portion of the property by eminent domain to widen Lisbon Street.

Bureau contended in his lawsuit that by the time he became aware of the construction project, he had started renovating his business. He said when he went to Gendron’s owners, they promised him construction wouldn’t be too disruptive and said they would reduce his rent if the project hurt his business.

Bureau claimed his business was doing great until the state took 22 of his parking spaces and began construction on Lisbon Street. In his suit, Bureau also claimed that the air conditioning didn’t work properly and faulty pipes flooded the basement with sewage.

Bureau shut down his business in September 1995, and filed his lawsuit in Androscoggin County Superior Court a few years later.

A judge first dismissed the case before it went to trial, but the Maine Supreme Judicial Court later reversed that decision. The case went to trial last week.

During the trial, Douglas argued that her clients didn’t tell Bureau about the construction because they didn’t consider it a big deal. She also said Bureau’s business was losing money from the start and that his business failure was unrelated to the construction.

“He suffered some bad luck and that was unfortunate,” she said. “There had been four or five businesses in that location before them, and none of them made it. But none of them tried to blame Gendron for that.”

Tom Hallett, Bureau’s attorney, said the $650,000 award would give Bureau the opportunity to reopen his business.