Matt Boone/SPPSThe Alexander Black house has been moved from its previous location on Main Street to Draper Road

The present historic district corresponds roughly to the area north of the junction of Main and Jackson streets including sections out along Lee and Progress streets.

If successful, the expansion to a National Historic Register District would bring in the necessary funds for a museum at the Alexander Black house and provide aid for local homeowners.

Qualifying properties would have to meet age and other restrictions to receive federal and state tax credits that can be used to renovate the properties.

The tax credit program does limit what can be done to a property, but participation is voluntary, Virginia Department of Historic Resources Roanoke office Director John Kern said.

This new plan will expand only the town's state and federal historic districts. Those designations do not impose any automatic restrictions or review requirements on property owners.

Blacksburg town museum director Terry Nicholson advises calm.

"We're not going to be telling anybody they can't do something to their house," Nicholson said, "This will actually benefit the homeowners."

Blacksburg currently has three designated historic districts: local, state and national. The local district imposes some restrictions by town ordinance.

The tax credit program would likely include the Alexander Black house on Draper Road and help the town qualify for up to $1 million in tax credits for its renovation and conversion into a museum.

Officials have been working for years on a $3 million plan to turn the house into a town museum. Efforts have been held up because of the house's 2002 move from Main Street to Draper Road in order to make way for the Kent Square retail and office complex.

The move disqualified the house from an individual listing on the state and national historic registers, Kern said.

If the building is included in the expanded historic district, however, it may become eligible for tax credits.

Gilbert Street's Odd Fellow's Hall and South Main Street's Doc Roberts Tire Co. are already under renovation through the National Historic Register District program, at $400,000 and $5.1 million respectively.

Work is ongoing at the Doc Roberts site, which will eventually house the town's planning and engineering departments.

Nicholson said work is also set to soon begin on the renovation of the Odd Fellows Hall, which will become the town's black history museum.

The districts can preserve the cultural heritage of an area, which often translates to tourism and economic development as it has in Roanoke, where Kern said the Jefferson Center and the Roanoke Higher Education Center were both renovated through the tax credit program.

"The more you know about an area, the more important it becomes for community awareness. If you know about the significance, maybe you'd be less inclined to knock stuff down for a strip mall," Kern told the Roanoke Times.

About 70 such historic districts have been designated in Southwest Virginia, Kern said.

The town has already applied to Kern's office for a matching grant to pay half of the up to $17,000 in consulting fees required to apply for the district expansion. A consultant is required because the application must meet strict federal guidelines set by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Kern said.

If approved, the expanded district would not take effect until late in 2009. Public comment sessions on the plan will be scheduled later this year.