A group of property owners — two Bend physicians, two real estate brokers and a professional dispute mediator — is exploring the development of new retail and medical facilities just south of St. Charles Bend.

One of the brokers, Compass Commercial Real Estate Services Principal Broker Stephen Toomey, said the group could start construction late this summer.

An architect working with the group, Mike Gorman of BLRB Architects in Bend, filed documents Wednesday requesting a pre-application meeting with city of Bend Community Development Department staff.

The documents outline a proposal to build on a vacant, 1.6-acre parcel on Cushing Drive, near Northeast Neff Road and Northeast 27th Street.

A blueprint submitted by Gorman shows two buildings on the lot: One would be a two-story, 14,000-square-foot medical office, based on the proposed drawings. The other would be an 8,375-square-foot combined bank and retail building. The drawing also includes 78 parking spaces.

The lot is zoned for high-density residential development, but that zoning allows for some commercial uses, according to city code. It’s also in Bend’s medical overlay zone, a roughly 80-acre area around the hospital designed to encourage construction of new medical facilities.

Several high-profile construction projects have been built or started within the zone, and in the surrounding area, in the last year, including the recently completed U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs building on Courtney Drive, a nursing home that’s under construction at 27th and Forum Drive, and a new building for Bend Neurological Associates on Northeast Conners Avenue.

Toomey said his group has a tentative agreement with a company to lease part of the retail space.

“We need to go through the city planning process, but we feel pretty confident” about the project, he said.

A member of the group bought the land in 1991, paying $120,000, county property records show. Other members bought partial shares of the lot between 2006 and 2009.

A pre-application meeting between the developers and the city is scheduled for Thursday. Compass Commercial is marketing the property on its website.