A nice, spicy chicken wing does sound good today. Heck, on this cold and snowy day, wing sauce in my boots sounds good too. I can’t confirm that Buffalo Wild Wings will do that for you, but I can confirm that the restaurant chain has filed plans to build a new restaurant on south Iowa Street.

The restaurant is the lead tenant for a new retail development slated for the northeast corner of 27th and Iowa streets. That’s the location of a Chinese restaurant building that has been vacant since 2008, and an empty lot that years ago housed Mazzio’s pizza. (Warm breadsticks from Mazzio’s — which, at times, mysteriously looked like hot dog buns with melted cheese — sound good too today.)

The plans filed at City Hall show that Buffalo Wild Wings will take about 6,000 square feet in the new building, and that the growing tanning salon chain of Sun Tan City will occupy about 1,900 square feet. The plans also call for a 5,000 square-foot retail space that doesn’t yet have a retail tenant identified. But I bet you it will get one. If you have forgotten, the site is caddy-corner from one of the more active retail corners in the city right now — the old Sears building that will house Dick’s Sporting Goods and at least two other major tenants.

There hasn’t been any definitive word on what this means for the Buffalo Wild Wings location in downtown Lawrence, but there is speculation that the downtown location will close and be replaced by this one. I’ve reached out to officials with Buffalo Wild Wings for several weeks now, including yesterday, and haven’t been able to get any response.

But if you remember, we reported on speculation all the way back in July that Buffalo Wild Wings would be moving from downtown to this very spot at 27th and Iowa streets. Adding to the speculation that the restaurant will move out of downtown is that its current building at 1012 Massachusetts St. has been on the market. Buffalo Wild Wings is just a renter at the building, but potential buyers of the building have told me that the building doesn’t come with a long-term lease for Buffalo Wild Wings. But, until we hear official word from the restaurant chain, it is too early to know for sure what the future holds for the downtown spot.

It is worth noting, though, that the Buffalo Wild Wings building has changed ownership in recent weeks. It is now owned by Christie Brothers LLC, which appears to be led by Michael Christie, who was also part of the previous ownership group of the building, Jayhawk Equities. So, it will be interesting to watch what happens at that location because it is a fairly large downtown space. I’ll try to reach out to the new owners and report back.

It also will be interesting to watch for more changes along South Iowa Street as Dick’s Sporting Goods gets closer to opening this summer. We’ve previously reported that two shopping centers near the area have changed hands: the Holiday Plaza Shopping Center at 25th and Iowa and the Tower Plaza Shopping Center at 2540 Iowa St. Well, there is one other smaller sale in the area to note. The property at 2500 Iowa St. also has sold in recent weeks. Longtime insurance agent Gary Petersen sold the building to Iowa 2500 LLC, which includes executives with the commercial real estate firm R.H. Johnson Co. Those are the same executives that also are part of the new ownership group of the Tower Plaza Shopping Center, which is adjacent to 2500 Iowa. In other words, leaders with R.H. Johnson Co. — which have attracted a lot of national retailers to Lawrence — now own pretty much the whole block.

Petersen, though, said there aren’t any plans for his Shelter Insurance agency to move from the building. The building also houses a ProCuts hair salon.

In other news and notes from around town:

• Perhaps City Hall officials have discovered what I’m quickly discovering: A snow day isn’t as much fun as it used to be. My fifth-grade son was up at 6 a.m. to begin practicing for an extravaganza of Olympic events he plans to host today, and, alarmingly, my second-grade daughter somehow has got her hands on a lit Olympic torch.

Anyway, all this is to say that as of about 9:30 this morning, city officials haven’t yet canceled tonight’s City Commission meeting. Stay tuned, though; that may change. Regardless, I’ll give you an update on one item that may or may not get heard tonight.

City commissioners will consider officially issuing a “request for information” from companies interested in partnering with the city on improving broadband service in the community. The RFI comes as city officials are processing a request from Lawrence-based Wicked Broadband that asks the city for a $500,000 grant and several other incentives to conduct a pilot project that would bring super-fast Internet service to downtown and East Lawrence.

Wicked’s proposal is to bring the same level of broadband speed to Lawrence as Google Fiber is installing in the Kansas City metro area. City officials, though, aren’t necessarily asking for companies to come up with a plan to replicate the Google Fiber project. Instead, the RFI asks companies to “enhance the availability of high speed internet services for residents and businesses and to increase the competition amongst providers for these services in Lawrence.”

The city is encouraging anyone and everyone who has some expertise in the area to respond to the RFI. That means both WOW and AT&T are being asked to provide a plan on how they can boost service in the community.

The RFI doesn’t mention any financial incentives the city may be willing to offer. In other words, it doesn’t say the city has $500,000 it is ready provide as grant money. But it does ask companies to describe what financial incentives it would seek from the city.

The bigger carrot the city is dangling is access to a significant amount of fiber optic cables the city owns throughout the community. Plus, the city controls all the rights-of-ways, traffic signals and several other facilities that broadband equipment could be mounted to.

Firms have an entire month to come up with their proposals. The deadline for responses, as it is currently proposed, is March 5. No word on how long it may take the city to evaluate the responses. Wicked’s request for incentives is scheduled to go before the city’s Public Incentive Review Committee on March 4. We’ll see if that date changes.