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A half-dozen letters from people interested in buying or leasing the old Blacksburg Middle School site sit in a folder in the Montgomery County School Board office.

But the board, which controls the 20-acre piece of prime real estate on Main Street in downtown Blacksburg, doesn't discuss any of them.

"There's no reason to talk about it. We can't do anything with them," board member Rick Johnson said.

A year after Blacksburg and county officials held closed-door talks about a developer's proposal to build a giant shopping mall on the old middle school site, that proposal and its competitors sit in limbo, lost in the interlocking discussions of three governmental bodies.

All the school board can do is eventually decide whether or not the district needs the site for classes and school athletics.

And board members say they can't make that decision until county supervisors OK building a new football field to replace the stadium behind the old school where Blacksburg teams still play.

Supervisors and Blacksburg Town Council members are discussing the formation of a committee to draft a request for proposals for the site. Town council, which oversees the zoning for the property, is planning a site-by-site study of the downtown that members hope will yield guidance on future development.

"Right now, everything to do with the thing is sitting dead," Montgomery County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gary Creed said.

The delay is frustrating for some, including the president of Branwick Associates, the Virginia Beach development firm that proposed building a $160 million, 620,000-square-foot retail mall in closed-door sessions with Blacksburg officials last year.

"We're still eager to go forward on the project. But we haven't heard from anybody," Branwick president Bob Smithwick said.

There are signs, however, that a patient buyer may eventually be rewarded.

After months of closed-door negotiations, a deal may soon be struck between the county and an unidentified landowner who will give the school board property for a football stadium.

The board may then relinquish control of the old school to the county, which could sell or lease it.

"A contract has gone out," Creed said about the possible stadium site. "We're hoping to hear back directly."

But it will not be an easy task to come to consensus on the best use of the old middle school.

For Penny Franklin, a member of the school board and a resident of Christiansburg, sale of the old middle school offers a chance to pump some much needed funds into the town's budget. The estimated $6 million to $10 million would go toward building new schools and refurbishing old ones.

The board "can't just give the building away," she said. "There are too many other needs that must be met."

Residents of Blacksburg are split on what should go on the site, which abuts the town's commercial district and historic neighborhoods.

Howard Feiertag, a tourism consultant who lives in Blacksburg and teaches at Virginia Tech, would like to see the old school developed into something that would draw shoppers and restaurant-goers back to downtown Blacksburg from the Christiansburg strip.

"As long as there's no public money involved, let developers make it into something that will attract people," Feiertag said. "I'm a big believer in downtown development."

Mark Lattanzi, who organizes monthly contra dances at the old middle school, believes the property should be a combination community center, playground and park.

"We need more amenities" to bring people downtown, rather than another retail development such as Kent Square, Lattanzi said.

For years, many town residents have argued for building a community and arts center that would house nonprofit groups such as Habitat for Humanity and perhaps serve as a satellite campus for New River Community College.

But a town-led community center project undertaken soon after the school closed in 2001 failed to garner enough support to pay for itself.

Joan Munford, a former delegate to the General Assembly who has lived a block away from the middle school since she was a little girl, still hopes that some sort of civic center will emerge there.

"I want to see something there that's helpful to the neighborhood, not commercial. Surely that's not impossible," Munford said.

Last year, a proposal from the YMCA at Virginia Tech to buy the building for use as a central headquarters with room for other nonprofits reinvigorated hope for a community center among residents of the surrounding historic neighborhoods and nonprofit organizations.

But the YMCA's critical space needs can't wait much longer. So the organization's director, Gail Billingsley, has started looking at other properties.

Some county officials, including Creed, don't see much hope for nonprofit use anyway because it would not generate any tax revenues.

Blacksburg Town Manager Marc Verniel has suggested that the county and town form a joint committee that, with community input, would write guidelines for developers interested in the old school.

The committee would also wrestle with the financial details, including a desirable sale or lease price and what level of tax revenue officials want to get out of the property.

With or without a committee, Blacksburg officials will have some control over what happens at the site because town council controls its zoning.

Currently, only sparse residential development or civic uses are allowed. Any other project would have to go through public hearings and come up for a vote before the council.

That makes council members "like my wife," Creed said. "They hold all the power."