A specialty grocery store could come to Rio Road.

For more than two decades, a lot at the mouth. of Carmel Valley on Rio Road has remained vacant. (It was formerly an apartment building.) Now its owner wants to build 44,500 square feet of retail space including a specialty grocery store. But residents are eying the project with suspicion. It’s one of five projects currently being considered in the area.

“We’re looking at all of the projects being proposed,” says Priscilla Walton, president of the Carmel Valley Association. “We’re evaluating each project on its impacts on traffic and water.”

They have yet to take a position on any of them.

The proposed development at 3705 Rio Road, next to Carmel Mission Inn and across from Crossroads Carmel shopping center, would include a 30,000-square-foot grocery store and up to nine units for fast-casual dining and other retail, says developer Doug Wiele, who owns the lot.

Other proposed projects in the area include 150 affordable rental units adjacent to Carmel Middle School; the Rancho Cañada Village with 130 residential units; up to 42 units at the Val Verde Road development; and new state park access from Carmel River Beach inland.

The Carmel Valley Land Use Advisory Committee held a public hearing on Wiele’s proposed development July 5, where at least a dozen concerned residents expressed reservations. The project will now undergo an environmental impact report and a traffic analysis.

The best-case scenario for Wiele is that the retail spaces open their doors in two years. Wiele, who also developed the Trader Joe’s retail area in Monterey, contends a grocery store like New Leaf at the mouth of the Carmel Valley would actually reduce traffic on Highway 1, as less people will make the drive to Whole Foods and Traders Joe’s in Monterey to go shopping.

Walton’s not convinced. “My primary concern is that we keep Carmel Valley rural,” she says. “Traffic is already a serious problem.”