There’s still no word on when construction of the proposed Major League Soccer stadium in St. Paul’s Midway might start.

And the silence is making some business owners in the area nervous. Minnesota United team owner Dr. Bill McGuire is keeping mum about what the hold-up might be, except to say that land and stadium design issues remain complicated.

To host games in 2018, work on the $150 million stadium was once expected to begin in May or June.

“As soon as that’s finalized, we’ll let you know,” McGuire said Tuesday. “It is extraordinarily complex. … It is literally too involved to try to conduct business in the newspaper. … There are all these conversations going on that frankly can’t be public.”

McGuire joined three city, state and St. Paul Port Authority officials in a panel discussion Tuesday hosted by the Midway Chamber of Commerce at the MidPointe Event Center, near the stadium’s future home off Pascal Street.

The former chair and CEO of the United Health Group said he met this week with two developers, including a hotel developer, to discuss bringing new real estate to the Midway Shopping Center and the vacant land surrounding the stadium’s future location off Snelling and University avenues.

He said Minnesota United will play MLS matches at the University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank stadium in 2017 and for part of 2018. Sporting director Manny Lagos was in Scandinavia this week scouting for players.

"We're moving ahead with this (playing at TCF) rather than waiting and saying oh maybe we will come back in a year" pic.twitter.com/Ux4XQjWsgQ — FredMelo, Reporter (@FrederickMelo) September 27, 2016

McGuire has denied that construction has been held up by property and sales tax exemptions that have yet to be signed into state law. Sen. John Hoffman, DFL-Champlin, who co-authored three stadium-related bills in the last legislative session, said he foresaw no challenges getting those exemptions approved in early 2017.

The stadium, to be privately funded, will be handed over to the city. In March, however, the St. Paul City Council approved a plan that would direct more than $18 million in public funding into the streets, sewers and green space around the stadium, provided that stadium development move forward with the redevelopment of the dated strip mall.

How that redevelopment will proceed remains in question. Despite a recent master planning process conducted with the city, shopping mall owner RK Midway and its principal, Rick Birdoff, have shared few details about any immediate changes.

Rainbow grocery, Pearle Vision, Midway Pro Bowl, Home Choice rentals and a handful of neighboring shopping center tenants will have to relocate to make room for the 20,000-seat stadium, but business owners say they’ve received no word about when their existing storefronts will be demolished.

McGuire: "I cannot tell you how complicated it is…you don't always get to set your own schedule… We're committed." — FredMelo, Reporter (@FrederickMelo) September 27, 2016

“I haven’t heard anything as to when,” Pearle Vision owner Bill Peta said in an interview. “We are going to be moving. But I’m in limbo right now.”

Peta said Pearle Vision has had a presence at different locations within the mall for more than 30 years and “there’s a couple spots we’ve looked at” elsewhere within the shopping center.

Midway Pro Bowl owner Scott Koecheler said Birdoff assured him he will continue to have a home somewhere within the shopping center, but the prospect of having to relocate has left longstanding bowling leagues with the false impression that the lanes closed.

Scott Koecheler, co-owner of Midway Pro Bowl lost three major leagues who assumed he had closed shop. He hasn't. pic.twitter.com/ZW98zZIUzY — FredMelo, Reporter (@FrederickMelo) September 26, 2016

As a result, he’s losing customers left and right. He’d like to know as much as anyone when the stadium will be built and where his future home will be.

“If they’re going to move forward, move forward,” Koecheler said. “If they’re not, then put it out there.”

His 2 pm leagues no longer show… pic.twitter.com/x39YqXeqDO — FredMelo, Reporter (@FrederickMelo) September 26, 2016

PORT AUTHORITY DESIGNATION

Meanwhile, the Port Authority remains under contract with Metro Transit, the city and the team to assemble state and local environmental grants for land cleanup at the site of the proposed stadium.

On Tuesday, the Port Authority board took the relationship a step further. They approved a resolution to create a development district for the shopping center land surrounding the vacant “bus barn” site, though not for the stadium site itself.

The “industrial development district” designation would allow the Port Authority to step in with little notice and coordinate development of the shopping center parcels if the board feels necessary.

“It doesn’t mean we’re buying it, it doesn’t mean we’re doing it, it’s just: ‘Let’s get this done in advance in case we need to do it later,’ ” said Port Authority President and CEO Lee Krueger, in a recent interview. “It’s kind of preemptive. We don’t have any purchase agreement.”

Still, city council members Dan Bostrom and Dai Thao expressed reservations Tuesday. Both members sit on the Port Authority board.

“I’m just concerned that we maybe heading in a direction that we never anticipated or were advised of,” Bostrom said.

Krueger noted that the Port Authority has authorized more than 80 industrial development districts in the past but has acted on only a fraction of them. The Port Authority has created 21 business centers.

The Midway Shopping Center and a parcel of vacant land next to it, which also sits in the new development district, remain owned by RK Midway principal Birdoff.

“There’s still negotiations ongoing between the soccer team and the shopping center,” Krueger said.