Lingering in limbo takes a toll.

So said Anita Wilson, a co-owner of Burger in the Square and a representative for other food court vendors in the Roanoke City Market Building, when addressing city council Monday.

She said many of the food sellers are in dire financial shape because of stigma left over from widespread publicity in September about troublesome health inspections inside the building and its businesses. Follow-up inspections in November found few problems.

The businesses' revenues are off between 40 percent to 60 percent since Sept. 19, she said, the date the city closed the building after health inspectors found evidence of widespread contamination by mice and food-handling problems at the 10 small food court sellers.

"I am not exaggerating when I say that as things stand, there is no future for most of us," Wilson said. "Several of our businesses are now facing shutdown decisions in days or weeks, not months. The rest are sinking."

Wilson said business owners cannot plan for the future because they do not know what will happen to their leases and stalls if major renovations proceed for the market building -- which the city owns and maintains.

The City Market Building opened in 1922. Momentum has grown in recent years for its renovation because the building has continued to deteriorate.

On Monday, Wilson asked city officials and council members for "straight answers" and "firm and useful commitments" before Christmas.

The firmest commitment she received was a promise to communicate with the vendors.

City Manager Darlene Burcham said added clarity about the building's future will come "no earlier than March 2009."

Most of the vendors' leases expire at the end of February.

Burcham said the city has offered to help vendors who are interested in beginning to look for temporary quarters during renovations. She said "we do not see, at least at the present time, a scenario where the businesses could remain open [in the building] while the renovation is occurring."

Burcham said the city remains in negotiation with a firm for a contract for engineering and design services intended to define the building's future. She said that design work could identify a way to keep the vendors' businesses open in the building during the makeover.

She and council members heard also on Monday from Glenna Johannessen, owner of Seeds of Light, a small shop housed in the market building but with a street-facing storefront. Johannessen emphasized that other downtown businesses will suffer if the market building closes completely during renovations. She said sales at Seeds of Light were down 14 percent during the two-week shutdown that began Sept. 19 when compared with the same two weeks in 2007.

She said the building's uncertain future has left her hesitant to upgrade displays, lighting and flooring.