Decades ago, the Federal Transit Administration helped Metro Transit establish a bus-storage facility near Snelling and University avenues in St. Paul. The “bus barn” was torn down in 2002, but the federal financing it involved could slow the city’s efforts to build a Major League Soccer stadium in the Midway.

Building an 18,500-seat professional soccer stadium on the 10-acre parcel would require the blessing of the federal government, and Uncle Sam isn’t always known for being speedy or simple to deal with.

“The Metropolitan Council is open,” said Louis Jambois, president of the St. Paul Port Authority, “but whatever they do, it must meet the approval of the FTA.”

Jambois said the federal government likely would require a professional value appraisal — “a couple of appraisals, actually” — as well as a review to determine how future development would link up with planned or existing public transit, among other analysis.

Jambois noted that Minnesota United’s team owners are under mounting pressure from Major League Soccer officials to identify a specific site for a future stadium as part of their proposed $100 million licensing deal with the league.

“That’s where the pressure is really coming from — it’s coming from Major League Soccer to the team ownership about having some certainty about where they’re going to go,” Jambois said.

“We are working to provide a site for them, but that site is owned by the Metropolitan Council, and it was financed — in whole or in part — by the Federal Transit Administration,” he added. “It would be impossible for the city, or the Port Authority, to acquire the bus barn site by the end of a month.”

Howie Padilla, a spokesman for Metro Transit, said federal review might not be so complicated.

“Fortunately, this is not a process that is unknown to us, and at this time we don’t see it as being a major impediment as we go forward with our process of determining potential uses for the site,” Padilla said.

Both team owner Bill McGuire and Major League Soccer deputy commissioner Mark Abbott have met with St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman to discuss the Snelling and University site. Jambois said McGuire’s interest in the location is sincere.

Nevertheless, McGuire and his business partners have said their top choice is a parcel of industrial land in the North Loop area of Minneapolis, near Target Field, the home of the Minnesota Twins. Those business partners include members of the Pohlad family, who own the Twins and have invested heavily in the area surrounding Target Field Station, which serves the Green Line, Blue Line and Northstar Commuter Rail.

Two Hennepin County commissioners, Peter McLaughlin and Mike Opat, have been meeting privately with Minnesota United team owners this month to work on a stadium plan for Minneapolis, raising the prospect that the two cities are now in competition.

In either city, team owners will have to negotiate land sales and land uses with a mix of public and private authorities.

While the Minneapolis land is privately owned, the 10-acre parcel in St. Paul is owned by the Metropolitan Council. RK Midway owns an additional 5 acres of vacant land adjoining the site, as well as the 20-acre Midway Shopping Center to the north.

McGuire has called redevelopment of the RK Midway land essential to a deal in St. Paul, presumably to capture some of the property taxes generated within the mall area and direct them into the stadium. RK Midway’s level of interest remains unknown.

The land, which has been home to public transit uses for a century, was once the site of a streetcar-manufacturing facility, and later became bus storage.

When the Metro Transit “bus barn” came down in 2002, then-St. Paul Mayor Randy Kelly’s administration tried but failed to lure Home Depot to the location.

Coleman has more recently envisioned a development with housing, offices, retail and a public park or plaza, but cost estimates heavily exceed what the private market would bear.

Jambois said the Port Authority could help St. Paul “at an advisory level, or a much more granular level” reviewing infrastructure, surrounding land uses and other technical aspects of a land deal.

“This is a typical redevelopment project,” Jambois said. “It’s exciting because it’s Major League Soccer, and it’s an opportunity to showcase St. Paul.”

Frederick Melo can be reached at 651-228-2172.

Follow him at twitter.com/FrederickMelo.