Minnesota United FC owner Bill McGuire envisions 25 to 35 soccer events a year at an 18,000- to 20,000-seat stadium at Snelling Avenue and Interstate 94 in St. Paul. A partial roof covering would help keep noise down and protect a natural grass field from the elements.

But it’s not just a professional soccer stadium he’s set his sights on. Green space around the size of downtown St. Paul’s Mears Park or Rice Park would invite passersby onto the 35-acre Snelling-Midway “superblock,” a future home to restaurants, corporate offices and even hotel rooms.

For perspective, McGuire’s designs superimpose 12 square blocks of downtown St. Paul over the site in question. The “superblock” is bounded by University and St. Anthony avenues to the north and south, and Pascal and Snelling to the east and west, with the future stadium tucked south toward the interstate. The future park would sit somewhere north, at University Avenue.

In short, McGuire and Midway Shopping Center owner RK Midway are talking up the possibility of a new retail campus in the heart of St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood — a site better known as the home of a faded Rainbow Foods grocery, a cramped McDonald’s and a Perkins restaurant.

Those development concepts are still mostly bullet points on a 52-page PowerPoint presentation, but the architecture firm commissioned by McGuire is possibly as little as a week away from unveiling firmer designs.

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A representative of S9 Architecture, John Clifford, said the

superblock exists separately from the surrounding residential

neighborhoods, and the right redevelopment could instead knit them together.

To do that, he envisions creating smaller, walkable development blocks more in line with the surrounding street grid, as well as year-round activities.

“It’s a really big site, and it’s just been kind of underutilized,”

Clifford said.

On Tuesday, neighborhood residents got their first official opportunity to weigh in on the development vision. After a 45-minute presentation by McGuire and other members of the Snelling-Midway Community Advisory Committee, the city held an open house at Concordia University’s Buenger Education Center.

The committee, composed of 24 community members appointed by the mayor’s office, has been meeting since Dec. 3 and plans to unveil recommendations on green space, traffic access and other site improvements in March.

Residents milled around tables displaying materials from the committee’s last meeting on Jan. 7, as well as a recent “community visioning” report on the Snelling-Midway site from the Union Park District Council.

A jobs strategy work group is studying how to connect local residents to future employment, as well as the space needs of future retailers. Whether housing remains part of the plan, as city officials once envisioned, remains up in the air.

The district council, which represents neighborhood interests, has highlighted the importance of green space, as well as transportation and safety improvements. The district council would like to see stadium development work in partnership with existing neighborhood businesses, instead of potentially displacing them.

Minnesota United has played up the appeal of the Superblock’s proximity to key transit corridors: the Green Line light rail connects downtown St. Paul and downtown Minneapolis, and Metro Transit’s future “A” Line rapid bus will follow Ford Parkway and Snelling from Minneapolis to Roseville.

McGuire hopes to begin construction of a privately-funded, stadium sometime this spring, pending key tax exemptions from the Minnesota Legislature. Minnesota United, which plays in a second-tier professional league out of leased space in Blaine, hopes to join Major League Soccer in 2017 and move into the new stadium the following year.

He said Tuesday that designers would take its inspiration from modern soccer stadium designs in London, Romania and Russia rather than Ohio.