Water from an unlikely place – along the Carmel River – may feed a proposed grocery store development in Carmel.

On a Peninsula where development has long been restricted for lack of water, a fresh supply is set to open up in Carmel and Carmel Valley. But maybe more surprisingly, a proposed shopping center on Rio Road may not even need to tap into it.

This past week, Sacramento-based developer Doug Wiele submitted plans to the county to build a shopping center on an empty 3.5-acre parcel just east of a Chevron gas station. Wiele, who built the Trader Joe’s shopping center in Monterey, can’t offer much detail yet, but says the proposal will be anchored by a 30,000-square-foot grocery store that specializes in organic, non-GMO products. (That would eliminate Whole Foods, and Sprouts.)

Wiele says he was approached in 2006 by executives from the grocery store chain – one that he’s done business with elsewhere – about building a store at the site. He didn’t think it was possible due to lack of water.

Eighteen months ago, while at the Starbucks on Rio Road, they revisited the idea. A revelation struck: Wiele realized the Starbucks had been a Black Bear Diner. It meant there were water credits.

“It was just serendipity,” Wiele says. “That is the nature of our business.”

The land the Starbucks sits on is owned by the descendants of Samuel F.B. Morse, the developer of Pebble Beach. They also own the land the Chevron sits on, as well as the vacant parcel Wiele hopes to develop. And while it’s not usually legal to transfer water credits within the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District, an exception is made for contiguous parcels. In the case of Wiele’s plan, the Starbucks parcel is contiguous to the vacant lot, as their property lines meet on Rio Road. And when the Black Bear Diner became a Starbucks, enough water credits were freed up that they might be enough to serve Wiele’s project, which he expects will require about 3 acre-feet annually.

If Wiele needs more water, a Plan B is in place: After a complex set of maneuvers that took place over the past years, 80 acre-feet will soon be put on the market by Malpaso Water Company, which is owned by Clint Eastwood’s Eastwood Trust. The water comes from the Odello East property, a former artichoke farm at the mouth of the Carmel River. In exchange for conveying the 82-acre parcel to the Big Sur Land Trust last year, as well as retiring 45 acre-feet of the property’s water right, the state this summer approved Malpaso’s right to sell the property’s remaining 80 acre-feet of water to properties in Carmel and Carmel Valley.

Carmel Development Company President Alan Williams, who represents the Eastwood Trust, says about half that water will be available this fall, and the rest in spring. A price has not yet been set, but Williams estimates it will sell for about $240,000 per acre-foot.

The Malpaso water, Williams adds, comes with historic water rights and is exempt from the state’s cease and desist order that requires California American Water to reduce pumping from the Carmel River.

“That’s important for people to know when they buy it – this is theirs forever,” Williams says. “Cal Am will deliver it to them, but it’s their water.”