The words “stadium fatigue” weren’t uttered once when St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman went before a Senate committee Thursday to ask for tax breaks for a new soccer stadium.

None of the legislators sitting on the Senate’s tax committee asked Coleman any questions as he pitched the stadium as a “catalytic opportunity” that would revitalize the surrounding Midway neighborhood.

The city is asking for permission for the stadium to sell booze, a sales tax exemption for construction equipment and a continuation of an existing property tax exemption for the site.

When asked by the committee whether his soccer team, Minnesota United, could get by without the tax breaks, owner William McGuire replied that there would be a “high possibility if not probability that the franchise would be lost without this.”

McGuire said running a soccer team, which doesn’t command television dollars at the level of other major sports, “makes a very difficult financial position, where what some might say are small dollars are actually very meaningful dollars to us.”

On the other hand, when asked about the long-term feasibility of the project in another context —whether it was worth limiting the tax exemption specifically for a soccer team, just in case such a soccer team failed — McGuire seemed much more upbeat.

“Were things to turn terrible — and looking at how some of the (Major League Soccer) teams have endured with a far less enthusiastic audience, we’re not counting on that — the ownership group would be out $250 million. So we don’t intend that to actually occur. … We’re pretty comfortable.”

The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Sandy Pappas, DFL-St. Paul, qualifies the exemption by saying the property can’t be used for anything other than a Major League Soccer stadium to receive it, and anything on the property that doesn’t have to do with the operation of the stadium would not be exempt. The exemption would last for 50 years — the length of the lease with Minnesota United.

McGuire noted the team anticipates spending at least $150 million for construction, as well as a franchise fee of $100 million.

Tom Goldstein, a former city council candidate who lives in the neighborhood, was one of two testifiers who spoke against the project.

“I don’t have any illusions that I’m going to change minds here today,” Goldstein admitted, noting that senators largely spoke in favor of the stadium. But he argued that Coleman had a “stadium addiction” which the Legislature should not enable, with so many other projects the money could be spent on.

Minnesota United FC hopes to break ground by June on the 21,500-seat professional soccer stadium in St. Paul’s Midway area. The stadium would be built by the team but owned by the city, and $18 million in public dollars has already been committed to the project.

The tax breaks may get added to a bigger tax bill this year, though leaders in both houses have expressed doubts about their passage, given the amount of state money that’s been spent on large stadiums in recent years.

On Wednesday, a House committee reviewed the liquor license but nothing else relating to the proposal. There were no objections to the license.