SANDPOINT — Dirt is turning on Sandpoint’s newest grocery store.

City officials gathered with the developers and operators of Super 1 Foods Friday to celebrate groundbreaking on the grocery chain’s 11th store in the region.

“This project took an awful lot of time to put together,” said Mike Winger, vice president for URM Stores, a Spokane Wash.-based grocery distributor which provided design services for the project.

Winger said the project would not have been possible without collaboration from city Planning Director Jeremy Grimm, Senior Planner Joan Bramblee and Public Works Director Kody Van Dyk.

Super 1 is shooting for a Fourth of July grand opening for the 54,000-square-foot store at the corner of Boyer Avenue and Larch Street. The store’s opening is expected to coincide with the installation of the city of Sandpoint’s first roundabout intersection at Boyer and Larch.

City officials have commended project developers and store operators for incorporating design elements which were not required, including architectural flourishes on the store’s west-facing façade and fewer parking spaces.

The store will sit on a 5-acre plot on a 26-acre property that used to be occupied by the LP sawmill. The site is being developed by Renova Partners, a company which specializes in redeveloping former industrial sites.