Getting a grocery store in downtown Lawrence may be a bit like me walking down the candy aisle. No, it won’t require hooking a dozen shopping carts together, but I am predicting it is going to take awhile. I say that because the process has barely begun, and the Lawrence Association of Neighborhoods is already asking City Hall to slow down.

If you remember, the owners of the Lawrence grocery store Checkers have an interest in building a downtown grocery store that would be part of a seven-story building at 11th and Massachusetts streets. But the Checkers group has asked city commissioners to consider a request that would allow the new grocery store to have exclusive use of 18 public parking spaces along Massachusetts Street, and 16 new spaces that would be along 11th Street. Commissioners are scheduled to hear that request at their meeting tonight and are expected to direct staff members to further study it.

But the Lawrence Association of Neighborhoods is asking that the idea not even be studied yet. It calls the request “extremely premature.” The association notes that the idea of a seven-story building across the street from both the historic Douglas County Courthouse and Watkins Museum is going to create some concern. The letter seems to indicate the height issue ought to be addressed before city officials start looking at parking issues.

No doubt the height of the building is going to be a matter that creates debate. But it is worth noting that this request for parking is coming directly from the Checkers group. In talking with Checkers owner Jim Lewis, he indicated that parking was going to be a paramount issue for the grocery store project. Given that, it appears he wants a read on the city’s thinking early on. It may be that if the city is not willing to give a little on parking, Lewis may find the site infeasible, and would have to shift gears. It is hard to know whether that’s the case or not because the project will include other parking in a private garage proposed for the area just east of the alley between Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Certainly, the idea of devoting public parking spaces to a private business — and removing the parking meters — is a big issue. There would be many businesses that would like to have that arrangement. Commissioners will have to decide whether a grocery store — which commissioners hope will make downtown a more attractive place to live — is a unique enough project to take the unusual step of altering the downtown parking system. But do you answer that question in the early part of the process or the later part of the process? I guess that’s the debate we’ll have tonight.

One group I haven’t heard from yet is Downtown Lawrence Inc. I don’t know if that group has taken a position yet on the parking idea, but I have a call into its leader. (UPDATE: I talked with Sally Zogry, executive director of DLI, and she said the group’s membership is excited about the prospects of a downtown grocery store. She said the group believes the city staff should study the parking proposal. But she said some members will have concerns about the Massachusetts Street parking proposal . But she said the membership wanted to hear information from city staff about how such a parking arrangement could be enforced and other such issues. She said DLI expects to provide significant input on the proposal as it gets closer to a decision.)

In other news and notes from around town:

• It is time to restart Lawrence’s never-ending Internet debate. City commissioners today will have their second study session in as many weeks on the idea of bringing high-speed broadband service to Lawrence. This week they are meeting with the leaders of Baldwin City-based RG Fiber to discuss its proposal to begin installing gigabit Internet service in parts of Lawrence.

Last week the company met with Lawrence-based Wicked Broadband to discuss its plan for gigabit service, which is the same type of service being offered by Google Fiber in Kansas City. Wicked’s proposal includes a request for a $300,000 loan guarantee from the city. Commissioners didn’t make any decisions on that issue, or really even tip their hand on that issue.

But last week’s study session did bring clarity to a couple of points. The first is that Wicked Broadband still is not interested in making its financial books public as part of the process for the city to determine whether to provide a $300,000 loan guarantee. As we previously reported, the city is being asked to make a decision on whether to provide the loan guarantee without knowing basic information such as the amount of debt Wicked currently carries, the company’s operating profit or loss, or other basic details about its balance sheet. But at last week’s meeting, Josh Montgomery, an owner of Wicked, said he would show his books to individual city commissioners who came by his office and asked to see them. But he said he would not submit the document to City Hall, which would make it a public document He said making his financial statements public would put his company at a competitive disadvantage. Of course, some of Wicked’s competitors are arguing they will be put at a competitive disadvantage if the city gives Wicked a $300,000 loan guarantee. So, I guess it is all just how you slice it.

The other point that was made clear last week involves the $300,000 pilot project that would provide service to parts of downtown and East Lawrence. The number that has most frequently been associated with the project is 300 addresses. That’s how many households or businesses that could be served by the project. But Montgomery made it clear that the 300 households is likely not the number that would actually end up with service at the end of the project. The project would run fiber cable in front of 300 addresses. Of that amount only a certain percentage would sign up for the service. It is tough to say with certainty how many addresses may sign up for the service, but Montgomery mentioned that 30 to 40 percent was a realistic target. All that makes sense, but we hadn’t quite explained it that way, and I’m not sure that commissioners realized that the pilot project may result in only about 100 locations having the high-speed service.

The issue that commissioners spent the most amount of time talking about is a technical one called common carriage. Wicked is proposing that any company that uses any part of the city-owned fiber optic network be required to commit to the idea of common carriage. Common carriage is the idea that more than one company can operate on the same set of fiber optic cables. The way it would work with this pilot project, for example, is that once Wicked installed the fiber system in downtown, other Internet service providers could lease space on Wicked’s cables. They would be charged a wholesale rate that would be consistent for any and all carriers. Wicked, as the owner of the system, would collect those wholesale fees. But Wicked also would be entitled to be a retailer of such services as well.

Montgomery is lobbying hard for the common carriage idea. He said it will spur competition, which will be good for the Internet consumer. City officials, though, are split on the idea. City staff members have raised concerns that other companies looking to make broadband investments may be turned of by the common carriage requirements. Some companies don’t like the idea of sharing their network, and some companies don’t like the idea of buying wholesale service from a company that also will be competing with them in the retail market.

Staff member also have said they are concerned the city will become a de facto regulator of the wholesale system, which they said could be time consuming and contentious. City commissioners seemed split on the idea too, so that will be one to watch.

As for RG Fiber, we’ll get an update on them today. But they have consistently asked city commissioners not to provide Wicked the loan guarantee because they view that as an unfair subsidy to a competitor.

The study session starts at 4 p.m. today at City Hall.