Market of Choice, a family-owned grocery chain based in Eugene, has bought nearly 3 acres of land just south of downtown Bend, but has no immediate plans to build, its president and CEO said Monday.

The company has an interest in expanding to Bend, Rick Wright, president and CEO, wrote in an email. But for now it has bought the property, located on the east side of Lava Road between Arizona and Colorado avenues, as an investment.

Market of Choice officials did not have a lot of time to thoroughly evaluate the property and the company’s expansion because they are in the middle of building a new distribution and production facility in Eugene.

“Market of Choice is very interested in expanding to Bend in the near future,” Wright said in the email.

Made up of several tax lots, the property has been through foreclosure, and Market of Choice had some previous knowledge of it, according to Wright.

At one time, a developer contacted the company about a mixed-used project proposed for the site, but Market of Choice passed. While the grocery company liked the location, it did not like the project, Wright wrote in the email.

In May 2006, LibertyBank loaned Colorado Street Development Partners, a California corporation, nearly $3.3 million on the site, according to property records.

The bank received an order of default in Deschutes County Circuit Court against the California corporation in January 2010, according to the records.

When the property went back on the market at a much lower price than the previous developers paid, Market of Choice became interested, Wright said. The company bought the property for nearly $1.2 million, according to a deed recorded Oct. 14.

Located about a quarter-mile from the Bend Parkway’s southbound Colorado exit ramp, the site would provide convenient access for deliveries. It’s around a mile from most other large grocery stores, such as Newport Avenue Market and the Safeway stores on Southwest Century Drive and Northeast Third Street.

Market of Choice grew out of the grocery business started by Richard L. Wright, Rick Wright’s father, according to a 2008 news release from Unified Grocers, a wholesale distributor. Before being called Market of Choice, many of the family’s stores were called Price Chopper, the release said.

Market of Choice, which sells conventional and organic food and supports local producers, has eight stores, all west of the Cascades, between Ashland and Portland.

“Whether we place a Market of Choice on this parcel or something else, we intend to develop a project that is consistent with the high standards and quality that defines Bend,” Rick Wright wrote in his email.