Central Market has its eye on Oak Cliff's Bishop Arts District.

The specialty grocer has purchased property at the northeast corner of West Davis Street and North Beckley Avenue in Oak Cliff.

The purchase was made "in anticipation of our future expansion needs," said Mabrie Jackson, director of public affairs for Central Market/H-E-B in Dallas.

"We are evaluating our options for this evolving and unique location," Jackson said.

There are no firm plans yet for developing the property, she said, but the property was purchased with a Central Market store in mind, not an H-E-B store.

The parcel had housed a transportation building for Dallas County Schools and was then bought by Crescent Communities, a North Carolina-based developer that's building an apartment complex across the street.

J. Scott Lake and Jake Milner, brokers in the urban division of Dallas-based Davidson Bogel Real Estate represented Central Market in the transaction.

Crescent Bishop Arts will be a complex of four-to-six story apartment buildings with a total of 302 units and 23,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space on the street level. The complex will include a parking garage and is bordered by Beckley, Davis, North Zang Boulevard. and West Neeley Street.

The development is under construction but won't be completed until sometime next year. North Oak Cliff has become a hot neighborhood for residents who want to live near downtown Dallas, and developers are following.

Both blocks are a short walk to the shops and restaurants in the Bishop Arts District. DART's Dallas Streetcar connects the southwest area of downtown through North Oak Cliff on Zang to Davis Street.

WDG Architecture designed the buildings to fit into the style of one of Dallas' oldest neighborhoods.

While the Sylvan Thirty project on Fort Worth Avenue has added more variety of grocery options -- Cox Farms Market and CiboDivino -- a Central Market would be well received by a neighborhood that has long complained about having too few grocery options. Tom Thumb, Kroger, El Rancho Supermarket, Fiesta Mart and other grocers operate stores in Oak Cliff.

Central Market, which is based in Dallas, is a division of San Antonio-based H-E-B, and it's the format the grocer has chosen to grow in Dallas-Fort Worth.

While there are half a dozen H-E-B stores in the perimeter of the region, and H-E-B has purchased several more parcels across Dallas-Fort Worth, it's still not saying what its plans are for that real estate.

Twitter: @MariaHalkias