Gloria Grayum, 64, is a diehard shopper at the Rainbow Foods grocery store in St. Paul’s Midway Shopping Center. The perpetual lack of customers — which contributes to a cavernous emptiness — doesn’t bother her. In fact, she goes there two or three times a week.

Grayum remains opposed to the prospect of a Major League Soccer stadium elbowing out her favorite grocery store. So far, there’s no firm date when it may close, which is fine by her.

“I think they have a few problems to work out yet,” she said.

There’s still no timeline on when actual soccer stadium construction — once slated to start last May — might begin, and St. Paul Port Authority officials have yet to finalize a joint venture with a developer interested in revamping the Midway Shopping Center containing the Rainbow grocery store.

City officials remain optimistic that earth removal will begin in May in the vacant lot near St. Anthony Avenue and Interstate 94 and that the stadium will open in 2019.

“It’s not by any means a solidified timeline,” said Mollie Scozzari, a spokeswoman with St. Paul Planning and Economic Development. “As a city we don’t know anything for sure until permits are issued.”

‘STILL WORKING ON IT’

Last week, Port Authority President Lee Krueger said he was still in discussions with a developer that could help move Midway Shopping Center tenants into place around the future stadium. Several, like Rainbow and Midway Pro Bowl bowling alley, are in the path of construction.

“I wish I could tell you that I have a done deal, but I don’t,” said Krueger, in an email. “Still working on it.”

For now the Union Park District Council is advising residents who drive on Snelling Avenue to prepare themselves for a bevy of trucks if initial site excavation and clean-up starts this summer in a vacant Metro Transit bus storage lot toward St. Anthony Avenue and I-94.

Minnesota United team owners and stadium builders Mortenson Construction have yet to apply for demolition permits. But representatives of a dozen city agencies recently met with them to go over a possible timeline for the construction of the $150 million Major League Soccer stadium off University Avenue.

A full accounting of the Feb. 14 site plan review meeting is online at the Union Park District Council’s website. Team officials showed plans that depicted Rainbow Foods demolished as soon as this May. But city officials caution not to take it too seriously.

It remains unclear when the SuperValu-owned Rainbow Foods would be removed to make room for the 20,000-seat soccer stadium. The grocer has made no announcements.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have anything new to update on this front,” said Jeff Swanson, a spokesman for Eden Prairie-based SuperValu.

After meeting with SuperValu last week to discuss pension issues, Bernie Hesse, an organizer with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1189, believes Rainbow — which employs 45 unionized workers — is there to stay. “I think they’re going to sit on it,” he said.

Several Midway Shopping Center businesses directly impacted by future construction say they’re in the dark.

“I’ve heard so many stories, I’m confused myself. I don’t know,” said Dave Goldberg, manager of Big Top Liquors, which is located at a shopping center entrance that would be reconfigured into a real street. “Nobody has said anything to us. For us, it’s business as usual.”

A BUSY SUMMER

Team officials say earth work on Metro Transit’s vacant former bus storage lot — at the southern end of the future stadium site — is expected to begin as soon as mid-May.

Utilities will be brought onto the site this summer, and drivers should prepare for traffic disruption along Snelling Avenue, according to district council officials who attended the recent site plan review.

Some 130,000 yards of extra soil will be excavated and removed from the site in trucks, though some of that will be used on-site to fill the basement of the Rainbow Foods building once it is demolished.

Still under discussion with the city is “enhanced” infrastructure such as “flat curb” streets that can be converted into public plazas on game days. Bollards for traffic control, bicycle facilities and specialty lighting are also under consideration.

St. Paul Public Works officials suggest wider sidewalks, especially along Snelling Avenue. Stadium plans depict a publicly accessible sidewalk to the south side of the stadium along St. Anthony Avenue, where no sidewalk presently exists.

Metro Transit has expressed concerns about traffic control, pedestrian back-ups and fare collection, which will be discussed with the city later this summer. Full stadium construction permits could be issued in September, at the earliest.

REDEVELOPMENT, WEST TO EAST

Between the strip mall, the stadium and vacant adjoining land, the Snelling-Midway “SuperBlock” spans 35 acres of development opportunity.

Discussions with private parties interested in the west and north side of the “SuperBlock” along Snelling Avenue are still underway, but officials have said the tall office towers predicted in the site’s master plan are unlikely anytime soon.

In the near term, temporary parking lots on the west side of the stadium likely are to be constructed as indicated in a site plan approved by the city last year.

Meanwhile, according to district council officials, long-term leases on the eastern side of the SuperBlock will likely prohibit development there for several years.

REAL ESTATE ISSUES UNRESOLVED

Stadium construction had once been expected to begin last May or June. Minnesota United team owners have not elaborated on the source of delay except to say that real estate issues had become complicated.

City officials and others with knowledge of discussions say the loss of Rainbow Foods would negatively impact leases held by the Midway Shopping Center’s smaller tenants. The shopping center is split into four major parcels, and private financing on the two-acre parcel that is occupied by Rainbow has made it difficult to transfer ownership to the team.

Meanwhile, industry analysts say SuperValu, which owns the Rainbow at this location, needs greater assurances that its departure would not allow another major competitor, such as Hy-Vee, to take its place within the shopping center and compete with its Cub Foods property nearby.

To keep the project moving forward, the St. Paul Port Authority recently stepped into the arrangement between Minnesota United and Midway Shopping Center owner RK Midway.

The public agency is brokering a joint venture with an as-yet unnamed developer to become the shopping center’s lead tenant and jump start redevelopment of the strip mall hand-in-hand with stadium construction.

House lawmakers recently introduced a bill that would provide property tax exemption for the soccer stadium, as well as sales tax exemption for stadium construction materials.

The bill does not specify how many acres would be kept off the tax rolls or how much money the team would save, but lawmakers have been working under the assumption that some $3 million in property tax relief would extend to as many as 10 acres.