Could an outpatient facility step into the vacant Capital One building?

However, Southold Supervisor Scott Russell said in an interview this week that he’s had several conversations with Mr. Cardinale and described his vision for the property as matching the town’s. Both parties, he said, wish to see it remain professional office space.

“I reached out to Alan and he’s made a deep commitment to working with the town to make sure we get the type of tenants we’d like to see,” Mr. Russell said.

When asked if Southold would consider purchasing the property, the supervisor said the town is in no position to do so.

“We have enough assets,” he said. “It’s a big building and even if we’re successful getting a mental health care outpatient facility there, it’s not going to take up that whole building.”

Mr. Cardinale’s daughter, Donielle, a Mattituck realtor and a member of the economic development committee, described the recent discussions about the building’s future as a good start.

“Whether it’s that location or any other in Southold Town, our job in the economic development committee is to figure out how we can help people live productively in a way that supports our economy and the community,” she said. The biggest challenge with the former Capital One building, she added, is finding tenants with a “common theme,” so they complement each other.

She said she and her family, which has lived on the North Fork for five generations, do not want the property to remain vacant and will “wait for the right thing to come.”

“Until you explore something fully, sometimes there are great ideas that we would all love to see happen, but what it takes to bring those to fruition might not be practical, financially feasible or we might not have the resources,” she said.

Mr. Russell, who as supervisor serves as a liaison to the economic development committee, said that although he believes a medical facility would be a good use for the property — and would both meet a community need and create high-paying jobs — he agreed such an arrangement could be challenging.

“The need for a mental health outpatient facility for children is one thing,” he said. “Whether we can locate it in that building is something else … We’re trying to fill a building up and at the same time trying to identify community needs. Hopefully we can bring the two together, but that’s not always going to be the case.”

Mr. Russell said several community groups have reached out to him to collaborate on establishing mental health services for children and he plans to organize a meeting with various stakeholders to brainstorm solutions.

Expanded medical services for the North Fork are already on the horizon, thanks to the partnership agreement reached this summer between Eastern Long Island Hospital and Stony Brook University Medical Center.