It’s been quite a while since anyone tried to build a grocery store in downtown Lawrence, so it’s not surprising that such a plan would present some new wrinkles for city officials.

Jim Lewis, an owner of the local Checkers grocery store, confirmed last week that he was working to make a grocery store part of a new development at the corner of 11th and Massachusetts Street. The grocery store would occupy about 20,000 square feet on the ground floor of what currently is envisioned as a seven-story building that also would include office space on the second floor and apartments on the top five floors.

As happens with about any new downtown development, parking will be an issue. Lewis said adequate parking is essential to the success of the new store and he is asking city officials to consider dedicating 18 angled parking spaces on the east side of Massachusetts Street and 16 new angled spaces that would be built along 11th Street for grocery store customers. The project also will include a four-story parking garage to serve the grocery store as well as the office and apartment tenants.

The parking request is on Tuesday’s City Commission agenda but it’s unlikely commissioners would do more than refer the request to city staff for further study. It will, however, give commissioners an opportunity to react to the idea, which will give Lewis and the developers of the overall project an idea whether the city is open to exploring the unusual parking proposal.

Enforcing non-metered on-street parking for a new store would be challenging, but new ideas sometimes require new strategies. Parking might have been easier at the former Borders location at Seventh and New Hampshire, but Lewis indicated that negotiations to locate a store at that site have stalled. The developers of the 11th Street project turned their attention to the grocery store idea after being unable to close a deal with a national drug store chain.

This project is far from a done deal, and city officials need to take time to gather input from residents and other downtown businesses in the area about the parking issue. The entire seven-story project also will be the subject of reviews that will include looking at its potential impact on three neighboring structures on the Lawrence Register of Historic Places: the Douglas County Courthouse, Watkins Museum of History and the English Lutheran Church, which now houses law offices.

The return of a full grocery store to downtown Lawrence has been on the wish list for some time for residents of downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. The existence of such a store is seen as a key element to attracting and supporting the kind of residential development that would maintain the vitality of downtown Lawrence. It’s a new idea that requires some new thinking. City officials should see what they can work out.