Three years in and optimistically eyeing a 2017 groundbreaking, the developers of the mixed-used Dot Block project said this week that they are juggling design and funding questions that will have delayed the start of the massive project next to a vital Dot Ave crossroads.

Members of the Columbia-Savin Hill Civic Association were briefed on the project’s progress at their monthly meeting on Monday night at the Little House on East Cottage Street.

The Glover’s Corner development, which Dot Block co-owner Sean Gildea said would break ground late next spring in the best-case scenario, requires $150 million of investment for construction costs. The developers are working to secure that funding, likely from an institutional lender, he said.

Dot Block will include five buildings with 374 residential units, about 40,000 square feet of retail space, and some 450 parking spots in a five-story garage. A pedestrian walkway will leave the complex open to the surrounding neighborhood.

The Dot Block group owns 3.95 acres that make up the bulk of the site that is bordered by Dorchester Avenue and Hancock, Greenmount, and Pleasant streets as well as a gas station lot at the corner of Dorchester Avenue and Hancock Street. Developers are still trying to bring two adjacent properties onto the project — a Vietnamese bakery and the Sarahcare Adult Day Care Center.

After a deal to secure those parcels between the gas station and the main project land fell through, the project has been working since September to bring them back online. They are not included in the scope of the current project.

Catherine O’Neill, who represents the developers, told civic members that they had found an alternate location for the day care center on Freeport Street. But, said Gildea, “the bakery owner remains “a little bit intractable,” and things are at an impasse.

Because the corner properties are missing, the Dot Block ground-floor retail space is deep, without a large amount of street-facing frontage. “We’re trying to activate the ground level,” Gildea said. “We have more than one national retailer who is interested in taking the entire 38,000-square foot chunk of space to use for a supermarket piece, which I think some neighbors like and and some might not, but the space is configured in a way where that make the most sense.”

If smaller tenants were interested in occupying smaller portions of the retail space, Gildea said, they would have to “jigsaw” the pieces together.

Retail negotiations with supermarkets are somewhat complicated by limited “drivers” of commerce in the area.

“There aren’t a ton of stores along the way,” Gildea said, “so that’s been a challenge. But we feel good about it.”

After the meeting, Gildea said that the RODE Architects team is working on project blueprints. Because different potential grocers envision different configurations for the retail space, design conversations are ongoing, he added.