The City of Knoxville’s effort to acquire the Veterans Administration campus has come to a standstill, due to the government shutdown.

The city has been in discussions with the General Services Administration, the federal agency with authority over disposition of the property. But the shutdown means all such operations involving the GSA are on hold; a conference call on the subject scheduled for Monday had to be cancelled, because there was nobody in the GSA offices to take part.

Knoxville City Manager Aaron Adams tells KNIA/KRLS News nothing else can happen until the shutdown matter is resolved.

“As a city we’re in limbo a little bit, kind of waiting for that negotiation to start. We kind of hoped that the start of the year would be that time,” Adams says. “We’re on hold until those issues at the federal level are straightened out; and then we anticipate to get back into things at that point.”

Adams says there’s no timetable for the city to follow on completing these talks, but there’s also no timeline on when the shutdown will come to an end.

And he says even when it does, it will take some time for the GSA to get back up to speed, which will further extend the process.