South Minneapolis could get a grocery store it needs. Oppidan Investment Co. has proposed building a mixed-use development at 46th Street and Hiawatha Avenue that would include a larger grocery store. No retailer has been identified and the project is in the early planning stages.

The proposal, which is laid out in a staff report that was presented to the Minneapolis Planning Commission of the Whole, includes 155 apartments atop the 48,000-square-foot grocery. There is also 3,300 square feet available for smaller retailers. Renderings show a five-story, U-shaped structure that wraps around a patio area with several amenities including a hot tub, fire pit and bocce ball area.

The project would include 133 underground parking spaces for the tenants and 172 spaces for shoppers on a surface parking lot. The structure would be built with precast wall panels, brick veneer, engineered wood panels and metal panels.

The development is on a nearly 6-acre site that is across the street from the 46th Street Blue Line light-rail station. The site is now home to an industrial building that houses the offices and distribution facilities for Creative Kidstuff. Planning documents say that building would be demolished.

An extension of Snelling Avenue would be built through the site, extending south from 46th Street and connecting with the public right of way near Hiawatha Avenue.

There is a dearth of grocery stores in this part of the city — though there is a Cub Foods on Lake Street and the nearby Target has groceries.

The proposal comes at a time when several grocery stores are under construction, or have been proposed, elsewhere in the Twin Cities. A mixed-use apartment building with an Aldi store on the first floor is being planned for a site along Lyndale Avenue across from the French Meadow restaurant in the Uptown neighborhood. And apartments atop a Trader Joe's is under construction along Washington Avenue in downtown Minneapolis.