The Market of Choice grocery store coming to Bend will include a mezzanine, fireplace and space for customers to linger over lunch, said the builder who plans to break ground there in March.

“It’s kinda cool,” said Darren Dickerhoof, of Dickerhoof Properties, a general contractor and real estate firm in Eugene.

Dickerhoof Properties and Willamette Valley Co., another Eugene-based developer, have teamed up to develop the property between Arizona and Colorado avenues from NW Lava Road east to the U.S. Highway 97 ramp.

Market of Choice, a 35,000 square-foot building, will occupy 2.6 acres adjacent to Lava Road. The Eugene-based grocery chain has nine locations: four in Eugene and one each in Corvallis, West Linn, Portland and Ashland, with a ninth scheduled to open in January in Beaverton, according to the company website. Dickerhoof Properties partnered with Market of Choice on its Corvallis store, Dickerhoof said.

In Bend, plans call for extending NW Sizemore Street across the property from north to south, with it ultimately connecting to Arizona. A parking lot will separate the grocery store from two smaller buildings, which are planned for the 1.5-acre lot to the east, the two developers said.

One of the buildings, expected to be about 3,200 square feet, is designed for a bank or credit union, said Paul Rudinsky, of Willamette Valley Co. The other, planned to be 8,000 square feet with a drive-thru, would be suitable for coffee shops, phone stores or small restaurants, he said. Tim Campbell of Campbell Commercial Real Estate in Eugene, the leasing agent for Willamette Valley Co., said four or five tenants could fit into that building.

“We’re not going to be lacking tenants there,” he said Wednesday.

Two companies — Lava LLC and WV Colorado Crossing LLC, subsidiaries of Dickerhoof Properties and Willamette Valley Co., respectively — will be landlords for Market of Choice.

Dickerhoof Properties and Willamette Valley Co. bought the Market of Choice site from the grocery chain on Nov. 17, Rudinsky said.

Plans to develop the site have been in the works for three years. Willamette Valley Co. bought the larger lot in May 2011 in a short sale, then sold it to Market of Choice the same month for $1.17 million, according to Deschutes County online property records. In October 2011, Willamette Valley Co. bought the smaller lot for $845,000, according to online records.

Typically, a retailer will lease its property from the builder rather than tie up cash it can use to expand to other locations, Dickerhoof said.

“We think that’s a great area between downtown Bend and the Old Mill District,” he said. “What Market of Choice liked is that it’s very accessible from all parts of town.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7815, jditzler@bendbulletin.com