PRINEVILLE – Starbucks is not confirming it.

But the megamillion-dollar Seattle coffee giant is sending out signals that it plans to build its first store in little Prineville, lending a touch of urban character to the town’s newest shopping center and blowing the first whiff of chain-store mocha into a market that has always been homebrewed.

”I think it’s a big deal that a franchise like that would choose to come to Prineville,” the city’s senior planner, Dave Reesor, said Wednesday. ”I think it says there is a lot of growth that is happening over here.”

Some of the growth is coming to Combs Flat Crossing, a new three-building shopping center on Highway 26 on the town’s east side. Starbucks applied for a building permit last month to build a new store in one of the center’s buildings. It has not yet applied for any planning approvals, which it also needs to secure before any building can start, Reesor said.

Martha Nielsen, Starbucks’ regional marketing manager, refused to confirm that the company intends to locate in Prineville. Steve Toomey, one of the partners who owns the shopping center, also refused to comment.

Still, since word got out about the building permit application, the coffee world of Prineville has been abuzz.

But not particularly worried.

Lori Goodman, who owns the Friends Espresso and Bento Bar on Third Street with her longtime friend, Sharon McPhetridge, said she thinks there’s plenty of coffee demand in Prineville to accommodate Starbucks, along with the town’s existing seven or eight shops and stands.

If anything, it’s just another sign of the town’s healthy growth, she said.

”You kind of have mixed feelings about it,” Goodman said. ”It’s good for business, but when you’ve lived here all your life, you kind of miss the small-town feeling.”

John Allen, a Clear Pine Moldings worker who owns the little Checkers Custom Coffee shop near downtown with his wife, Bonnie, and partners Dave and Amy Spear, said he thinks his shop’s regular customers will stick with it. Still, he and the partners are thinking of adding new features, like extended evening hours and even Friday morning deliveries.

”I’m kind of excited and apprehensive at the same time,” he said of the possible arrival of the world’s biggest coffee purveyor. ”But change is good, I guess.”

Starbucks shares hit an all-time high Thursday, jumping $3.04 a share to close at $34.40. Wall Street analysts speculated that a strong quarterly earnings report and perky sales of the company’s seasonal drinks were behind the surge.

The company earned $174 million in the last 13 weeks of 2005. It owns 10,801 stores in 37 countries. It plans to open 1,300 more this year in the United States alone.