SMITHFIELD - Dawn Transue is looking to open a sandwich shop in Johnston County, and she thought she'd found the perfect spot when she saw the vacant Riverside Café space.

"I think what attracted us to it was location, location, location," Transue said, pointing to the nearby courthouse. Also, she knew Riverside had done a thriving lunch business until it closed abruptly last August.

Transue figured town leaders would be eager to get her in the space. But she ran up against brick walls, and no one, she says, has been able to tell her a price for the building or who she'd buy it from.

Chris Johnson, head of the Downtown Smithfield Development Corp., said buying or renting the building in't as easy as he would like. The reason: Mark and Susan Hall, who own the Riverside building, have filed for bankruptcy, and their property is in foreclosure. Mark Hall is the former investment adviser who's in jail awaiting trial on charges he stole $2.6 million from his clients at Market Street Advisors, which he owned.

"The banks traditionally do not sell a property they're foreclosing at a loss on the front end," Johnson said. "They're going to do their due diligence as a bank to auction it off."

The mortgage holder on the Riverside building hasn't indicated its plans for the building, but Johnson thinks it could be another six months before the property comes up for auction. Until then, someone would likely have to offer the full amount owed to the bank to snag the property, Johnson said.

For her part, Transue wonders why BB&T showed her the building but wouldn't quote her an asking price. "For me, I wish they would take it off the [town's economic-development] website and not show it to me if it's not for sale," she said.

Meanwhile, Transue is looking elsewhere for restaurant space. The only other suitable spot in downtown Smithfield is the old Marla's/Off The Hook space on Third Street. But Transue says it's too big and lacks the foot traffic of Market Street. Now she's looking in Clayton.

Johnson says Transue isn't the only person who's shown interest in the Riverside space, but he's gotten fewer inquiries since much of the restaurant equipment inside was sold off.

Across the street

Across the street from Riverside, the former home of Mark Hall's investment business has found new life.

An Aflac agency has opened in the front half of the building, while the Stokes & Associates Bail Bonds agency is making its home in the back. The now-subdivided office building has several other spaces available, and Johnson says several potential tenants are looking at it.

The difference between the Hall family's two downtown properties is that Mark Hall sold the Market Street Advisors building in 2007 to Carolina Panthers LLC, county records show. That entity belongs to Mark Hall's son Scott, Johnson said.

Scott Hall was not implicated in the embezzlement investigation, and he has full ownership of the building, allowing him to rent it out.

"Scott is trying to hang onto that property," Johnson said. "I think he has worked with the banks to renegotiate his loan."