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Keisha Chavis said shopping for groceries hasn't been the same since she moved here from Richmond in 1996.

In Richmond, where Chavis grew up, it wasn't unusual for her to make four trips to Ukrop's in one week. She often stocks up on food at Ukrop's when she visits family in Richmond. She likes the chicken salad.

"Every since I moved here, I'm like 'Where's Ukrop's? Why won't Ukrop's come this way?'" Chavis said.

Ukrop's Super Markets plans to open a Roanoke store next fall at Ivy Market, a 10-acre retail center proposed in Southwest Roanoke at the corner of Wonju Street and Franklin Road. The Richmond-based, family-owned grocery chain plans to have a 58,000-square-foot space at the retail center, according to Painter Properties, the developer of Ivy Market. Ivy Market would be a $20 million center.

Ukrop's will house a cafe with upstairs and downstairs seating, a bakery, kitchen, deli and its own First Market bank branch.

Walgreen's, a drugstore chain, also will open in an approximately 15,000-square-foot space in Ivy Market, said Whitney Painter, spokeswoman for Painter Properties.

Robert "Bobby" Ukrop, president and chief executive officer of Ukrop's, said the private chain chose Roanoke for its new store because "it's a growing market."

Roanoke would be the third city where Ukrop's has built stores outside of Richmond, where it dominates the grocery market and snatches 30 percent of the market share, above Kroger, said Jeffery Metzger, publisher of Food World, a grocery industry publication.

Ukrop's operates 28 retail stores, with 26 in Richmond, one in Fredericksburg and one in Williamsburg. It expects to open a second Williamsburg store in 2006.

"It's not your typical grocery store," Chavis said. "You feel like you could be in a restaurant because of the layout of the store."

Ukrop's stores include bakeries, kitchens and delis that serve carryout meals, including pizza and fried chicken, and natural and organic food sections. They're closed on Sundays.

Metzger said Ukrop's targets a core customer demographic with high education and income levels.

Ukrop's has long been recognized for its customer service. Employees carry groceries to customers' vehicles. Ukrop's has been named to Fortune Magazine's list of 100 Best Places to Work for five years.

But the nature of Ukrop's competitive dominance depends on the market, Metzger said.

"Ukrop's is a high-profile, very successful company that's going to create a stir in the marketplace, I would expect," he said.

Kroger is one of the dominant grocery chains in the Roanoke Valley, with 12 stores, including one in Botetourt County.

"Our plan is just to continue ... serving customers to the best of our ability," said Carl York, Kroger spokesman.

This is not the first mention of a specialty grocery store at the Ivy Market site.

In April 2003, Wild Oats natural foods supermarket, a chain based in Colorado, backed out of a plan to locate at the same Ivy Market site where Painter Properties originally planned a 7.3-acre retail center.

Painter Properties has not yet filed a site plan with the city of Roanoke for its current project, said Conley Taylor, development review coordinator.

Bland Painter III of Painter Properties said he will file a request for rezoning with the city next week because the new center is larger than the previously proposed Ivy Market. He also said the space for Ukrop's is twice as large as the space planned for Wild Oats.

There are other issues with the site that need to be resolved before construction can begin, although Painter refused to give details.

Painter Properties wants to bury a quarter-mile of Ore Branch creek in a pipe to free up land for the shopping center, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Painter Properties must get state and federal water-protection permits to do that before construction begins. Ore Branch flows into the Roanoke River.

Painter Properties is "not even close" to qualifying for a permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said Thom Leedom, a biologist in the agency's Christiansburg field office on Friday.

However, Painter Properties could get the permit by completing specified steps to mitigate possible environmental degradation, Leedom said. A specific concern is curbing possible adverse effects on the Roanoke logperch, a federally protected fish.

Among the steps outlined several months ago, Painter Properties must submit plans to manage storm water and control erosion; install a device to slow water as it leaves the pipe to the creek's natural rate of flow; and contribute to a trust fund that benefits wetlands and aquatic life. The preliminary required contribution is $134,000.

The state Department of Environmental Quality has a completed application for a state permit from Painter Properties and is prepared to issue the permit upon Painter's request, said Jay Roberts, a Virginia water-protection permit project manager in the DEQ's Roanoke office.

Federal restrictions are more stringent than the state's, Leedom said.

Another specialty grocer is considering a location up the road from the proposed Ivy Market. Fresh Market, a natural-foods retailer based in Greensboro, N.C., is negotiating for a 25,000-square-foot space in the former Heironimus location at Towers Shopping Center.

Staff writer Jeff Sturgeon

contributed to this report.