The cost to put a grocery store in Akron’s Highland Square neighborhood could be nearly $7 million.That might sound like a lot, but city leaders say building the store for this price would be possible only with a low-interest federal loan to cover the $3.8 million construction cost.Akron City Council voted Monday to apply for the loan — which could carry an interest rate as low as 0.74 percent for 20 years — from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).“If we do not get the loan, this is not going to happen,” said Councilman Jeff Fusco.Adele Roth, the city’s development manager who has been working on trying to bring a grocery store to Highland Square for years, didn’t want to say the project would be dead without the loan, but admitted it would be much more difficult.“I don’t know if I can take ‘dead,’ ” she said. “ ‘Difficult’? Absolutely.”Akron spent $3.1 million on the Highland Square grocery store project in December 2010 to purchase the rest of the property needed to make a grocery store at the corner of North Portage Path and West Market Street a reality. The city now owns the triangular property at the corner where the store would be located, the Chipotle building to the east and the parking behind the Chipotle building.City leaders say the $3.8 million loan would cover the cost of site preparation, utilities, paving, landscaping and building a 12,400-square-foot grocery store. They say debt service for the loan would be paid for the first three years through with the rent from tenants in the Chipotle building and after that with rent from Phillip and Margaret Nabors, who plan to run the grocery store.“We have enough money to do it without putting any subsidy into it,” Roth said of the loan. The Naborses, who live in Highland Square, own stores in the Montrose area of Bath Township and Solon. They plan to lease the Highland Square property and buildings, with the option to buy down the road.City leaders still must negotiate a development agreement with the Naborses, which City Council will need to approve.The city may not hear whether its HUD loan is approved for six months to a year. Roth is hoping to get the development agreement in place and the construction drawings done so that everything is ready if HUD signs off on the loan.Akron would back the loan with Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds, which HUD requires for its loan approval process.The city has established a for-profit organization, called Highland Square Economic Development LLC, that would be the developer for the project. The group would be staffed by city employees.Councilwoman Linda Omobien questioned the role and makeup of this group during Monday’s council meeting and whether others should be represented on its board. “I want to make sure we are as transparent as we need to be,” she said.Mayor Don Plusquellic said Akron created the organization, as permitted under state law, to act on the city’s behalf for this project. He said the group will serve as the project’s developer, though the hope is that another developer will be brought in at some point.“We will not use this group to avoid transparency,” he said. “The law provides this as a mechanism. ... The inference that this is meant to be anything other than objective, I object to.”Council unanimously approved seeking the loan, with several members expressing relief that the project appears to be moving forward.“Now the question will become: Are the people going to support it?” said Council President Marco Sommerville. “I feel that they will. I’m going to support it.”Two Highland Square residents expressed support for the grocery store during the council meeting and urged the administration to continue pushing to make it happen.“The work you are doing here is so important to the community,” said resident Ronald Higgins. “Real people’s lives would be touched.”While some Highland Square residents have been clamoring for a grocery store, others think the city is spending too much on a store for one neighborhood. City leaders think providing a grocery store in a neighborhood that lacks one is an essential service and point out that similar efforts have been made in other areas — most recently to bring the Dave’s Market to East Exchange Street. That project, which totaled about $11.5 million, included a HUD loan like the one the city is trying to get for the Highland Square store.Roth also said the $3.8 million loan isn’t money Akron could be spending on another project — it’s funds the city is seeking for this project. “We’re not shortchanging somebody in Akron by doing this,” she said.Stephanie Warsmith can be reached at 330-996-3705 or swarsmith@thebeaconjournal.com.