TIVERTON — Additional details — that could include public financing — about a proposal to locate a 130-acre outlet shopping center at the Tiverton Industrial Park will be discussed between the Town Council and the developer at a Council meeting Monday, Jan. 25.

The meeting is currently set for 7 p.m. in Town Hall, but depending upon the level of interest shown, could be changed to another venue.

The idea of an outlet center was first broached publicly at a council meeting in late November, when Legacy Venture West Development (Legacy Development) of Kansas City and the Town announced they had reached a "stand still" agreement on Nov. 23.

That agreement allows each side an exploratory period of 90 days to study the possibility — to do due diligence — without the risk of intervention by other potential purchasers.

If the whole deal goes through, Legacy and the Town of Tiverton have agreed to a purchase price for the acreage of $8.25 million.

Likely at the top of the list to be discussed by the Council and Legacy at the upcoming Jan. 25 meeting will be the level of public financing that Tiverton and the State of Rhode Island might be prepared to offer, and that Legacy might seek.

"Legacy is being asked what kind of public incentives from the State and from Tiverton it's going to seek to make the project work," Town Planner Marc Rousseau said.

In other words, he said, "we're asking Legacy to have their public finance guy tell us at the council meeting what they're looking for."

That could include tax increment financing and tax exemptions, he said.

Since November, Mr. Rousseau said Legacy "has been busy doing its due diligence" about the prospect of building a multi-unit outlet center at the location.

That due diligence has involved numerous issues, Mr. Rousseau said — "basics like access roads and building location."

The basic configuration for the outlet center that's being considered "is a horseshoe arrangerment," he said, "and there's a lot of wetlands on the site."

Legacy has had site engineers from DiPrete Engineering Associates, traffic engineers, and an architectural-design firm from Kansas City (Hoefer Wysocki Architects) — all studying the site, Mr. Rousseau said.

"What we're telling them," Mr. Rousseau said, is that "the bylaws for the Industrial Park and zoning" will have to be complied with.

That means, he said, "any retail complex at the site has gotta be special and meet the code."

"No building can be larger than 40,000 square feet, and there has to be 20 feet between buildings," he said. And they also "have to comply with the Comp Plan ."

Last November 23, in comments to the council, Legacy's Vice President of Development Bart Sides sketched out what Legacy had in mind for Tiverton.

"We do have a concept called 'The Legends,' which has been very successful in Kansas City," Mr. Sides said then. "It's an open air shopping center with a lot of landscaping."

The type of retail outlet he's talking about, Mr. Sides told the Council, "is typically not a big box concept. It's usually 15,000 square feet or smaller. We have some tenants that go up to 35,000 square feet. We don't want to rule out a big box if the right people come along, and if the community is open to that, and we certainly want to talk about it. But generally speaking this is not a big box concept."

The Legends Outlets shopping center in Kansas City has about 110 stores. See: www.legendsshopping.com. By comparison, Wrentham Village Premium Outlets in Massachusetts has about 170.

Locating the proposed outlet shopping center on the northwest quadrant of the 172-acre Tiverton Business Park would entail moving the town police station and the Department of Public Works barn, now situated at the far northwest corner of the property near the intersection of Industrial Way and Fish Road, to another part of town.

There have been perisitent rumors that one site for the two facilities might be further back into the business park and along Progress Way, near the Tiverton Power station.

The "stand still" agreement cost Legacy $2,500, and allows for a "potential extension of 60 days by mutual agreement of the parties." This could peg the expiration of the 150-day "stand still" time frame to about the end of the third week in April.

There was to have been a meeting between Legacy Development and the Tiverton Economic Development Commission (EDC) on Thursday, Jan. 14, but for reasons that were not disclosed, and that are unclear, that meeting was cancelled or postponed, to allow Legacy to bypass the EDC, and to talk directly with the council instead on Jan. 25.

There have been suggestions, in letters to the editor and elsewhere, that Legacy and Capionato Development Group, whose proposal for a 63.4 acre multi-use development almost directly across Route 24 from the intended site of Legacy's proposed project was nixed by the Town Council last year, had been in talks with each other.

Asked about that, Mr. Sides said, "I have no comment on Carpionato. We are very focused on the Industrial Park site and creating a project that is acceptable to the residents of Tiverton."