It's been nearly two decades since there was an option to purchase a Slurpee from 7-Eleven Inc. inside Detroit's city limits.

By year's end, three stores are expected to open in the downtown business district, according to Stephen Oliver, regional development director for the Dallas-based convenience store chain, confirming previous reports about the company's plans, announced last summer.

"Detroit's metro area is probably the largest market where we have stores, but we have no stores in the city," Oliver told Crain's at the Detroit Policy Conference today at. "So, our growth effort is to get back into the city."

Oliver said the company's revived interest in downtown Detroit isn't entirely due to the resurgence of activity in the district over the past few years, but rather a reflection of the company's emphasis on "urban centers" across the country.

More downtown activity, he said, creates an opportunity for the compan to act as a catalyst for bringing more businesses inside city limits, he said.

"We can be a precipice for growth," he said. "Someone has to be first, we tend to be first, and people tend to follow."

Oliver said the elements exist to support a successful 7-Eleven store in the downtown district. He said the two main factors the company looks for in gauging a site's potential success is the number of pedestrians and density.

"I'm looking for a certain number of people to cross the front of my store, not across the street," he said. "The densities are there; we're just not giving people reason to leave the building."

The benchmark the company looks for in a potential site, Oliver said, is for there to be more than 10,000 people within a quarter-mile walking distance of the storefront.

Oliver said the company is negotiating four to six sites around theand. He said if all goes smoothly there could be three stores operating by summer, but "the end of the year is probably more realistic."

7-Elevens are known for being 24-hour operations. Although crime rates have fallen in downtown and Midtown, the city overall still struggles with high crime rates. Oliver said 7-Eleven does operate some stores that aren't open 24 hours, but there are not many.

If anything, he said, 7-Elevens are an asset to a community that may be struggling with crime issues. He said they do commissary, bakery, overnight delivery, grocery deliveries and soft drinks delivery, "so there's a lot of activity on the site."

"Another thing we've found is that when we're open 24 hours we become the eyes of the neighborhood," He said. "And I don't want to say things become safer, but there's more activity, which breeds [an environment where] everyone is looking out for one another."

He said the company has successful stores in areas similar to Detroit.

"I just opened a store in a part of Denver where we were the first retailer to go in there," he said. The company took an old storefront in disuse, tore it down, renovated it "and the neighbors love it."

Oliver said the company previously looked at areas in Midtown surrounding thecampus. However, the only sites currently expected to open are in the downtown area, he said.