It might not make financial sense, but H-E-B is considering bringing a grocery store to downtown anyway.

The company is “actively engaged” with city officials on the concept of a downtown grocery store, a company spokeswoman and Mayor Julián Castro said Friday.

A source familiar with the talks said H-E-B officials are considering a 12,000-square-foot store on Durango Boulevard near Main Avenue by its corporate headquarters in the historic 1860s Arsenal.

A downtown grocery is considered something of a missing link in drawing more San Antonio residents to the hotel- and tourist-heavy urban core, and Castro and City Manager Sheryl Sculley have pushed hard to get one located there.

Dya Campos, H-E-B director of corporate affairs, confirmed the grocer is looking to develop a site downtown, but said it hadn't committed to the project yet. As such, it had not yet settled on a specific property or format.

Although city officials and downtown residents have clamored for a store, H-E-B has remained mum on the subject until now.

“We've been talking about this for a while,” Campos said. “H-E-B truly understands that having a downtown store is really important to downtown, and to the growth of downtown and the city. It's an important initiative for the mayor and the city manager. We've been actively engaged in conversations with the mayor and the city team.”

The city potentially could offer a grocery store operator fee waivers, tax incentives, direct incentives or land.

“The toolbox is open,” Castro said. “We're very willing to incentivize it.”

H-E-B's corporate headquarters have been just south of downtown in the Arsenal since the mid-1980s.

Although H-E-B has not pinpointed a site for the potential downtown store, its corporate campus sits on the San Antonio River, and the company owns several other nearby parcels of land already, including some along South Flores Street between Durango and Guadalupe Street, fringing the King William neighborhood.

H-E-B closed a near-downtown store at 2701 S. Presa St. in 2008.

Bringing a new store to downtown could be more of an act of civic goodwill than business acumen, but a senior team at H-E-B is working hard to make that happen.

The Downtown Alliance estimates more than 4,500 residents live downtown in 2,667 condo and apartment units, and its officials have been told that three times as many units are needed to support a grocery store.

“A downtown store at this point really does not make economic sense to us, but we do realize this is an important initiative for the future of downtown and for the city leaders,” Campos said.

City officials believe the addition of a grocery store is a quality of life issue that could lure more locals and residential developers downtown, and last fall said they were considering issuing a request for proposals to find a grocery operator.

But they consider H-E-B the most natural fit.

“If there's going to be a grocery store downtown, of course it's most fitting that it would be San Antonio's official grocery store, H-E-B,” Castro said.

Castro said the lack of a downtown grocery was a frequent complaint during recent SA2020 meetings.

A framework plan presented this week for the future of downtown's HemisFair Park calls for an enhanced grocery store and marketplace.

“This is a significant priority for me,” Castro said. “I believe to some extent it's a chicken-and-egg issue. I'm confident a downtown grocery store will significantly catalyze residential development.”

But ultimately, the key choices — whether to put a store downtown, when and how big — rest with H-E-B.

“We have had very encouraging meetings,” Castro said. “Ultimately it is their decision.”

One place the grocery store wouldn't locate: the current site of the Univision television station on Durango, which had been rumored for months to be a possible spot.

Campos said that location is not under consideration, and Plaza de Armas, a local news website, Friday reported that Houston-based developer The Hanover Co. is in negotiations to purchase the property for a luxury residential development.

John Taylor, senior vice president at Jones Lang LaSalle, which is representing Univision, which owns the Durango location, said there were a number of offers from qualified buyers for the 4.3-acre property.

“I can't say much other than we're working on a potential sale,” Taylor said. A deal could be finalized in the next few weeks, he said.