The latest: Minnesota United unveils stadium designs for MLS stadium in St. Paul

Major League Soccer is apparently coming to Minnesota — St. Paul, to be precise.

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman’s office has rented the Midpointe Event Center, also known as the Dancer’s Studio, on Pascal Street for a media event at 1 p.m. Friday.

The mayor and Minnesota United FC team owner Bill McGuire are expected to announce that a professional soccer stadium will be built just off University and Snelling avenues on vacant property owned by the Metropolitan Council.

Metro Transit’s former “bus barn” facility has been the center of the discussions for the past six months. The team, which currently competes in the North American Soccer League, would join MLS and likely begin play in St. Paul in 2018.

“I hope you have been thinking ‘GOAAAAL,’ ‘Corner Kick’ and ‘Extra Time,’ ” St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce President Matt Kramer wrote Thursday to board members in a confidential email obtained by the Pioneer Press. “St. Paul reels in another big win!”

Further details were not included in the email. The mayor’s office, which has handled most discussions to date behind closed doors, declined to comment Thursday. The event center is near the 10-acre former bus barn site.

Friday’s announcement will represent a bit of a turnaround for the nation’s premier soccer league and Minnesota United FC, which had set their sights seven months ago on Minneapolis.

MLS officials this year announced their intention to bring United — a second-tier pro-soccer team — into the league, provided they were allowed to build an 18,000-seat stadium in Minneapolis’ North Loop neighborhood.

The league’s proposal would have taken valuable developable land near Target Field and the Minneapolis Farmers’ Market off the tax rolls in perpetuity, a prospect that offended lawmakers and Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges.

With that effort stalled, the team’s focus turned instead to St. Paul, which has been eager to develop vacant and underutilized spaces along Metro Transit’s new Green Line light-rail corridor.

And unlike the Minneapolis location, the 10-acre bus barn site in St. Paul’s Midway has been off the tax rolls for 50 years or longer. Metro Transit’s massive bus storage facility was torn down in 2002, leaving a giant plot of weedy, empty asphalt in its place. The location is prime, located within sight of busy Interstate 94 and stops along the Green Line.

McGuire has previously promised that in return for exemptions on property taxes and construction, an MLS stadium would be privately funded.

The prospect of injecting more life into the Midway through a $120 million construction project caught the interest of the St. Paul City Council, which in August passed a unanimous resolution of support layered with conditions.

The city, the St. Paul Port Authority and the Met Council formalized lease discussions this month through a joint powers agreement, and the council on Wednesday approved the creation of a citizen’s advisory committee to help guide development planning at the Midway site.

St. Paul city finance director Todd Hurley told the council this month that discussions with McGuire and MLS Commissioner Don Garber have focused on a stadium of about 20,000 seats.

Those talks have also touched on council priorities such as redevelopment of the neighboring Midway Shopping Center, the creation of new green space and prospects for structured parking.

Several steps remain before a stadium is entirely locked in, including tax exemptions from state lawmakers and a general blessing from the Federal Transit Administration, which helped the Met Council acquire the bus barn site decades ago.

In public statements to the media, Gov. Mark Dayton has already all but given the St. Paul location his blessing.

With the notable exception of Minnesota Wild hockey, St. Paul and the east metro have an established history of attempting to net major league sports teams only to watch them land in Minneapolis. That history has helped fuel some public skepticism about the seriousness of negotiations between Minnesota United FC and Coleman’s office.

St. Paul Mayor Randy Kelly tried but failed to bring Minnesota Twins baseball to the capital city during his tenure, which ended in 2005.

More recently, the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners partnered with Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf to build a professional football stadium on decommissioned military land in Arden Hills, but the effort withered in 2012.

Instead, a $1 billion NFL facility is under construction in Minneapolis, at the site of the former Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome.

As recently as this week, members of the St. Paul City Council questioned whether Minnesota United and MLS officials were fully invested in a St. Paul soccer stadium, or if they were using the city to lure a rival offer from Minneapolis.

Major investors backing the proposed MLS franchise include owners of the Twins and the Minnesota Timberwolves, professional sports teams heavily rooted in Minneapolis.

“If we get it, that’d be just terrific,” said St. Paul City Council Member Dan Bostrom in an interview Wednesday. “But until they sign off on this, I’m still just a little bit suspicious of the whole deal.”

Founded in 1993, the league is composed of 20 teams — including three in Canada — and has set its sights on expansion. New York City and Orlando joined MLS this year, and Atlanta and Los Angeles are expected on board in 2017, with Miami in the wings.

Frederick Melo can be reached at 651-228-2172. Follow him at twitter.com/FrederickMelo.