Nearly 10 years ago, then-Pioneer Press reporter Jason Hoppin began a story on the vacant bus barn site in the Midway this way: “In an apparent last-minute switch, Home Depot — not competitor Lowe’s — may have the inside track in developing a prime piece of St. Paul real estate near Snelling Avenue and Interstate 94.” Later in the same article, Hoppin wrote, “The project would be located on an almost 5-acre parcel adjacent to a companion 10-acre piece of property that once housed a Metro Transit bus storage facility. The 15-acre site is considered among the premier commercial development opportunities in the Twin Cities.”

Hoppin was not some wayward journalist. Reporters from other publications wrote similar things at the time: “The Met Council owns the 9.5-acre expanse of prime property at Snelling Avenue and Interstate 94 … In terms of prime, re-developable property, the site is near the top of the city of St. Paul’s list,” reported Bill Clements for Finance and Commerce. Even the Pioneer Press editorial board acknowledged the importance of the site, opining in 2005 that “the debates around development of the bus barn site are important … what moves into the bus barn site needs to be decided with an eye toward the future, namely its impact on local traffic and its fit with light rail.”

So what happened? How did a prime piece of real estate become a neglected “dirt pile” the mayor repeatedly refers to as a “brownfield site”? In truth, the land remains desirable, which might explain why RK Midway, the New York-based owner of Midway Shopping Center, was willing to pay a reported $10 million for the former bus barn location in 2014.

Unfortunately, the Met Council and RK Midway did not reach an agreement, and that agency’s intransigence, combined with a lack of interest among our elected officials — until a soccer stadium was the goal — has much more to do with the vacancy at the northeast corner of Snelling and I-94 than a lack of market demand. As far as anyone can determine, the parcel appears to never have actually been put up for sale, and when bids were supposedly being entertained in 2014, no developer was offered a cleaned-up, shovel-ready site — or the option to lease rather than purchase. Only the team, vis-a-vis the city of St. Paul’s rental agreement with the Met Council, was given that opportunity.

Contrary to the Pioneer Press’s decade-old call for debate and answering questions, no traffic or parking studies having been completed, no economic research has been conducted, and the more rigorous EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) has been eschewed in favor of an AUAR (Alternative Urban Areawide Review) — a document that won’t be available until June. Yet the city council has already voted to provide $18.4 million in infrastructure improvements and the Met Council committed to chip in as much as $4.5 million for environmental remediation.

Economists who have been studying the stadium boom for the past 30 years have found scant evidence that stadiums catalyze neighboring development beyond some bars and restaurants — and that quite often they simply shift spending habits from one part of town to another. Even Minnesota United managing partner Bill McGuire has acknowledged — two weeks ago to the soccer stadium Citizen’s Advisory Committee — that a large part of Midway Center might remain parking lots in the short term, “Whether you can get someone to build an office building — who knows? McGuire said.

Of course, none of these uncertainties have stopped the litany of media reports about the stadium’s benefits, including a recent editorial by this newspaper which claims that a soccer stadium represents a “catalytic opportunity” for St. Paul. But with nearly a third of the city’s property off the tax rolls, who really benefits from infrastructure improvements for the stadium and maintaining a tax exemption for the former bus barn site?

Certainly Bill McGuire and his partners — which, including the heirs of Curt Carlson and Carl Pohlad, as well as Glen Taylor, represent three of the wealthiest families in the state. Like most sports team owners, the group will be allowed to depreciate the $100 million MLS franchise cost and, by making a gift of the stadium to the city, presumably reap savings based on their tax bracket that could amount to somewhere between $48 and $60 million.

And don’t forget RK Midway, the absentee landlord that manages arguably the most underutilized and neglected retail shopping center in the city. Thanks to the generous lease terms between the City and the Met Council, RK Midway will receive the development rights to 1.5 cleaned-up acres of the bus barn site that adjoin Snelling Avenue. If those rights are as valuable as some developers have speculated, the company could reap millions at the expense of taxpayers — and control that portion of the site for as little as $85,000 in annual rent payments.

Fortunately, Midway neighbors won’t be completely neglected. In return for additional traffic, parking headaches, noise, lost retail outlets, and the continued burden of subsidizing a tax-exempt parcel for billionaires, we get the privilege of being in walking distance of professional soccer.

If that’s the price for matching Minneapolis in the number of professional sports venues, so be it. You don’t get to be the “most livable city in America” by pussyfooting around.

A lawyer and former St. Paul School Board member, Tom Goldstein lives in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood.