CLEVELAND, Ohio - Homegrown grocer Dave's Markets plans to leave its flagship Payne Avenue store - the site where the business originated as a corner shop in the late 1920s - for a new location in Midtown, where the company is planning a rare ground-up construction project.

President Dan Saltzman confirmed this week that the move, from 3301 Payne Ave. in AsiaTown to an emerging business park at East 59th Street and Chester Avenue, is likely, though it hinges on a public-private financing package that he's not ready to discuss.

If the money falls into place, construction in Midtown could start late this year, and the new store would open in fall or early winter of 2018. The existing store wouldn't close until the new project is complete.

The potential relocation is causing consternation in AsiaTown and the broader St. Clair Superior neighborhood, where residents - elderly shoppers and people who don't own cars, in particular - are worried about losing a full-service grocery store. Business owners in the district also are concerned about the possibility of diminished foot traffic and uncertainty about the future use of the existing store and two nearby parking lots, which the Saltzman family owns.

In Midtown, though, the fourth-generation company sees the chance to build something more innovative and modern, on a campus that will marry health care and fresh food.

The 60,000-square-foot store, on a highly-trafficked street with better access to public transportation, would sit just northeast of the planned University Hospitals Rainbow Center for Women and Children and north of new and refurbished office buildings.

"Can you think of a better component to have next to a women's and children's health center than a supermarket committed to healthy food access and education?" Saltzman asked.

Plans for the store include a mezzanine level that would function as a teaching kitchen and gathering space where Dave's, University Hospitals and neighborhood groups could host events and classes. The building also could house a bank, a drive-thru pharmacy and prepared food options that aren't offered at the AsiaTown store.

"It's going to be a Dave's supermarket," Saltzman said, "but we're building it for this East Side community, and that's the vision. If it's not all that, we really haven't done our homework very well. And we're going to do our homework very well."

Saltzman's father, Burt, described leaving Payne Avenue as bittersweet but necessary from a business standpoint.

The existing store, approximately 45,000 square feet, has been renovated and expanded over 40-plus years. The Saltzmans say it's outdated and inefficient.

The parking situation isn't ideal, since shoppers have to cross the street from parking lots on the south side of Payne. The family explored ways to reconfigure the store and looked at other properties in AsiaTown, where there's not much vacancy.

But the land at Link59, which is 1.1 miles southeast of the existing store, beckoned.

"Payne Avenue could stay here another couple of years, but it's not really a store of the future," said Burt Saltzman, who will turn 80 this month.

He still works at the Payne Avenue store, though he handed over control of the business to his sons, Dan and Steve, in 2005. Steve, Dan and Aaron Saltzman - Dan's son and part of the fifth generation to join the family business - have been arranging the real estate deal.

The Saltzmans haven't figured out what to do with their Payne Avenue building or the parking lots, though Dan Saltzman acknowledged that the family won't undercut its new store by selling or leasing the old one to another grocer.

In surveys and neighborhood plans over the years, residents and business owners have identified the need for everything from green space to senior housing to an AsiaTown community center of some sort.

Cleveland City Councilman T.J. Dow, whose ward includes both the current and future Dave's sites, has held small, preliminary meetings with business owners in AsiaTown. He expects to convene broader community meetings to hear residents' concerns and talk about the future of the Payne Avenue properties.

"I want to do my due diligence in my neighborhood," Dow said, "because I don't want a civil war in my ward, with uplifting one community at the expense of another."

He called Dave's a "great community partner" and said that the Midtown supermarket, on balance, seems like a good development. Dow confirmed that city officials are talking about public financing for the new store, including a roughly $1.8 million loan and 15 years of partial property-tax abatement on the project.

The city's economic-development department declined to comment. Nobody else - not Dave's, Hemingway or neighborhood group MidTown Cleveland, Inc. - would discuss details of the funding proposal.

Dave's has tapped a mix of public and private money for past projects. The company, which has 14 locations in Northeast Ohio, built its last ground-up stores more than a decade ago in Ohio City and Slavic Village.

"It's going to be a significant public-private partnership with a very complicated capital stack that we are close to finalizing," said Michael Panzica, a Hemingway principal. "The cost of new construction demands a higher rent than what can be achieved in the market. ... I'll let Dave's speak to their business, but they have a target for what they can afford to pay."

Hemingway plans to open its new Link59 office building late this year and finish the renovated Ace Fixtures building, now being called the Phoenix building, during the third quarter. UH hasn't started construction on its outpatient center for women and children, which is slated to open in 2018.

The Dave's store and parking lot would occupy 3 acres of the remaining property, an 11-acre site that the city partnered on with Hemingway in late 2014.

Jeff Epstein, executive director of MidTown Cleveland, Inc., said a supermarket will be an amenity for nearby residents and workers and a draw for new businesses. The neighborhood, positioned between the jobs hubs of University Circle and downtown Cleveland, is trying to cultivate both residential and commercial growth.

Epstein also believes that the new Dave's store will be a net gain for Cleveland, where Giant Eagle recently shuttered supermarkets on the east and west sides. "I think this store is going to be better positioned to serve more residents more conveniently with more services," he said, "and it's coming at a time when you have grocery stores that are closing in the city."

Community leaders in AsiaTown said they're talking to Dave's about ways to use public transportation or shuttles to help carless and elderly residents reach the new store. Dow also mentioned the prospect of working with the neighborhood's handful of Asian grocery stores - some of them a stone's throw from Payne and East 33rd Street - to stock more everyday items that residents might miss after Dave's departs.

"Asian residents in this neighborhood would not really be affected if they needed to shop for specific Asian types of groceries," said Johnny Wu, a filmmaker, member of community boards and co-founder of the Cleveland Asian Festival. "If you're talking about daily supplies like toilet paper, that may become an issue."

Michael Fleming, executive director of the St. Clair Superior Development Corp., started hearing about the potential Dave's move in March, when rumors - and some misinformation - began circulating among residents. If the Payne Avenue space sits dark, he said, there will be a substantial hole at the heart of a diverse neighborhood.

"The opportunity is really if we can come together with Dave's and the city," Fleming said. "The city is trying to push this new site, along with Midtown. And Midtown gets this, as well. There's an opportunity to fill the gap that is going to be there on Payne Avenue that is really a truly community-facing use."