End the speculation:

has its bull's-eye on the Galleria in downtown Portland.

Images submitted to city planners this month show a red-clad Galleria building featuring Target, with the company's logo next to the word "city" in a nod to an urban design for the typically suburban retailer.

Target officials, with the help of

, last summer began sniffing around Portland for a new location. The Galleria emerged as a leading candidate.

The images confirm that the Minneapolis-based company and Galleria officials are working on a deal. They discussed the preliminary design at a pre-application conference.

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A representative for the

, which owns the Galleria building at Southwest 10th Avenue and Alder Street, declined to comment, citing a confidentiality agreement. A spokeswoman for Target also would not elaborate.

"I am not in a position to talk about any specifics as they relate to Portland other than that we are actively talking to the city," Molly Snyder said.

Adams also declined to comment, saying he's not up to speed on the plans.

Developers in the past decade have sought to bring the retail giant to the city core -- perhaps to the central east side as part of a Memorial Coliseum overhaul or to anchor a proposed Burnside Bridgehead project. The new plan follows a chance meeting between Adams and a company real estate executive at a seminar in Los Angeles.

Target already has 15 stores in the metro area -- three in Portland, all in suburban-style settings -- where sizable parking lots and 120,000 square feet await shoppers.

The company is launching smaller operations called CityTarget. Officials plan CityTarget openings next year in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago.

Snyder said the CityTarget stores will offer an edited assortment of merchandise for urban living, such as balcony-size patio furniture and exclusive designer selections. And they'll be in densely developed locations, with the Seattle store set to open near

.

"We also anticipate devoting more space to grocery to provide urbanites with the groceries they need, especially fresh food," she said.

In Portland, preliminary design documents submitted to the city call for about 39,000 net square feet dedicated to retail sales within an 85,000-square-foot store.

The first floor of the Galleria would remain largely intact -- with

and

restaurant remaining -- but would include loading ports for Target trucks and a stockroom. The fourth floor houses the Sandford-Brown medical program and the Le Cordon Bleu's culinary school is on the fifth floor.

Target retailing would begin on the second floor and continue to a larger area on the third floor, according to the preliminary design.

Outside, on the corner of 10th and Alder, window arrows below Target bull's-eye sign would guide customers to an entrance.

Should the Galleria project move forward, Target officials probably will remain silent. Snyder said the company typically doesn't comment on new stores until it closes a real estate transaction, and official announcements tend to come about a year before a store's opening.