KALAMAZOO, MI -- A "natural grocery" and a handful of retail shops will use the building that is under construction in front of the Costco store in the new shopping center at Drake Road and Stadium Drive.

"Natural grocery" is the only title or description given for a 13,000-square-foot grocery that is expected to locate there, according to filings with Oshtemo Township.

Will it be a the next location for Phoenix-based natural foods retailer Sprouts Farmers' Market? Perhaps an addition to Texas-based natural food store chain Whole Food Markets?" How about a Trader Joe's, the California-base chain of store that market themselves as "your neighborhood grocery store?"

Trader Joe's is the name that continues to surface in connection with the project. But the developer will not say.

Project developer Joe Gesmundo said terms of his agreement with the potential store operator prohibit him from disclosing who will use the space.

And Trader Joe's isn't being definitive. In an email Tuesday, Trader Joe's spokeswoman Alison Mochizuki said, "Unfortunately I don't have anything to confirm."

Trader Joe's has more than 460 stores that sell organic, vegetarian, GMO-free and gourmet foods as well as imported foods, wine and beer, pet food, plants, flowers and other goods. About 80 percent of what the stores sells are products sold under brand names owned by the company.

The next closest Trader Joe's is on 28th Street in Kentwood. It opened in September 2015.

The natural grocery store will use a large part of a building that has been under construction since April. It will use about 13,260 square feet of a structure that will be about 25,700 square feet in total. The balance of the space, some 12,441 square feet, is being developed for two to three other retail tenants that have not yet been named.

Of tenants for that adjacent retail space, Ben Clark, zoning administrator for Oshtemo Township, said, "It is our understanding that it will, generally speaking, be smaller restaurants, that sort of thing."

He said he has heard nothing about who the potential tenants will be and does not know the identity of the natural grocery.

Clark said a large patio with an outdoor seating area, a space for socializing, is planned for the area between the natural grocery building and another building that is on the drawing board to the immediate east of it. (The building is seen in a conceptual drawing of the site.)

Although no building plan has been submitted for that structure, filings with the Oshtemo Township Planning Commission, indicate the building just east of the natural foods grocery structure, will provide another 7,655 square feet of space for at least three other retailers.

According to a statement in the filing by Gesmundo, the two new buildings will occupy space that could be the most visually prominent point in the Corner@Drake, the "lifestyle" shopping center that was established off the northwest corner of Drake and Stadium with the November 2014 opening of the Costco warehouse membership club.

The natural grocery store project is, thus far, owned by a Michigan limited liability corporation controlled by Gesmundo, who is a principal in AVB Inc., a developer, builder and manager of commercial and residential properties in Portage and Kalamazoo.

"Situated at the top of the large landscaped stone wall that defines the two major road frontages of the Corner@Drake development, the proposed placement of these structures will help to further emphasize the corner," according to the filing, "and will be readily seen by motorists on Drake Road and especially Stadium Drive."

Of the development thus far, Gesmundo has said he is pleased with its progress. He offered no time frame for when the grocery store project is to be completed.

Clark, of Oshtemo Township, said, "We've been pretty pleased with the developer's performance on this. They've done a nice job."

The project sits on the west side of Drake Road, the Oshtemo side of its municipal border with the city of Kalamazoo.