A large retailer could be coming to downtown Wilmington in a proposed, eight-level mixed-use development.

Although officials working on the project said they could not disclose the specific retailer, the property's owner, James Kirkpatrick, said the tenant would "be well-received" by the community.

Bordered by Grace, Second and Walnut streets, the project is expected to include a total of nearly 329,000 square feet and a parking deck with about 570 spaces, incorporated on property around the new Hampton Inn on Grace Street and the Bank of America office building on Third Street.

The development team for what is called "Riverbend 2nd & Grace" in site plans met Thursday morning with the city of Wilmington's Technical Review Committee for feedback on what would be in some ways a unique project for downtown Wilmington. 

"We're looking at a roughly 28,000- to 30,000-square-foot single tenant retail user on the ground floor that would need some pretty substantial trash and service loading," said Danny Adams, a project manager and associate principal at LS3P Associates, the architectural firm working on the development, at the TRC meeting. Paramounte Engineering Inc. is also involved in the project.

Adams, who called Riverbend "kind of like a little Swiss watch" because of its internal and right-of-way boundaries and large inventory of parking, gave a general description of the residential and parking deck portions.

"We're also looking to accommodate approximately 100 to 125 multifamily residential units above the retailer on the first floor and then basically in the middle of all that, the residential is wrapping around a parking garage," that would serve the retail user, residents, the adjacent Bank of America office building, the Hampton Inn and possibly other existing or potential hotels in the area. About 100 of the spaces in the only sub-level of the development would be set aside for use by the customers of the large retailer.

When asked for what might be considered any "fatal flaws" in the project, city officials pointed to the site plan's delivery bay that show room for two large delivery trucks and the potential for conflicts between drivers, vehicles using the parking deck and pedestrians on Grace Street.

But the development team members and city officials discussed the issue at length, providing suggestions about how any potential conflicts might be avoided, with developers pointing out that deliveries would be made at off-peak traffic hours and that delivery times could be spelled out in the lease agreement.

Adams said the retailer has "a couple of other I'm going to call it urban mixed-use sort of stacked projects so I think they understand the implications and complexity of working in downtown environments."

He said he doesn't think the delivery portion "will be anything dissimilar from what we ended up doing down at the Wilson Center," the Cape Fear Community College humanities and fine arts center, which LS3P also designed.

Conversations about the safety, transportation and other technical aspects of the project are going to continue with the city, the retailer and the development team, meeting participants said Thursday. The property is zoned Central Business District (CBD) and will be expected to conform to CBD design rules, which Adams said he is confident can be done.

A "Coming Soon" sign at the property placed by Cameron Management says "Parking Deck, Hotel, Retail and Residential Condos." Kirkpatrick said the development team has not yet made a final determination on whether the units will be apartments or condominiums.

As the technical details continue to be worked out, Kirkpatrick could not offer a specific timeline for when the project might start, but the development is expected to take about 15 to 18 months to build. Kirkpatrick's Riverbend #1 LLC bought the property, which includes the Bank of America office building, in 2015.