A new report that predicts more than 70 percent of Minnesota United fans will arrive at a future St. Paul professional soccer stadium by park-and-ride shuttle or public transit has skeptics pointing to other Twin Cities sports stadiums as evidence to the contrary.

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Calling Major League Soccer a draw for college students, young professionals and immigrant communities who already live in the city, Minnesota United fans highlight the experience of light-rail accessible stadiums in Seattle and Portland, Ore., as precedent.

Around the country, Major League Soccer has targeted younger, urban soccer aficionados. That millennial fan base is more likely to load up a light rail car than a minivan.

Midway residents remain wary about parking, traffic and other issues.

The city hosted a community forum Tuesday evening on the 20,000-seat soccer stadium and Snelling-Midway master plan assembled by team owners and Midway Shopping Center owner RK Midway. A hearing is scheduled Friday morning before the St. Paul Planning Commission on the master plan and site plan for the entire 35-acre site.

“Neighborhood parking is already being used by people using the Green Line,” Midway resident and stadium opponent Yvonne Schneider said at the Tuesday night forum. “If I were driving, I’d be going to take a free neighborhood parking spot over paying for parking.”

“My concern is that trying to cross Snelling and University at anytime of day is dangerous,” she added.

But Midway resident Margaret Schuster, a stadium supporter, said she sees sports fans by the dozens on her light rail commute heading west into Minneapolis.

“We already have the infrastructure to be able to handle the crowds,” she said. “We need this development, and we’re primed in this neighborhood to have it.”

Skeptics at the forum also expressed concern about noise, a lack of space for tailgating, and game day traffic overlapping with the Minnesota State Fair. But city officials said the team is protective of the playing surface and does not plan to host concerts.

GREEN SPACE IN FLUX

Minnesota United hopes to break ground this year on a privately funded, $150 million soccer stadium spanning more than 20,000 seats off Snelling and University avenues, major traffic routes that also double as major public transit corridors. Among the changes to the Midway Shopping Center, Rainbow Foods and a handful of neighboring retailers such as Walgreens and Midway Pro Bowl would have to relocate, though they’ve been invited to remain on-site in different corners of the shopping center if they choose.

The stadium would sit roughly 20,000 fans or more in its opening season, with the ability to accommodate up to 25,000 seats in the future without expanding the actual physical structure. Team owner Bill McGuire still hopes to break ground this year and begin play in 2018, though the team is counting on a series of tax exemptions in a state tax bill that has yet to be signed into law.

Plans for the surrounding strip mall redevelopment, which have been reviewed by a community advisory committee, remain in flux. In the latest site plan, Victory Plaza and Midway Square, two public greens that were once designed to extend north from an extension of Shields Avenue up to University Avenue, have been shortened. When the team begins play, the greens will likely end south of a McDonald’s and Perkins restaurant, which will essentially act as a buffer between University Avenue and the green space.

Team and shopping center officials have emphasized that the “opening day site plan” represents the layout that stadium visitors will see in 2018. The master plan envisions that a full redevelopment of the shopping center could take 10 years.

TRANSIT ESTIMATES TOO ROSY?

Mayor Chris Coleman has set the general goal of having half of all stadium-goers leave their cars at home and walk, bike or arrive by public transit.

The city’s draft environmental assessment, completed by private consultants and released Monday, estimates that 31 percent of stadium visitors will come in on Metro Transit’s Green Line light rail. Another 40 to 45 percent will take off-site park-and-ride shuttles. And up to 10 to 15 percent will walk, bike or take a public bus. The rest will drive.

As a result, other than moving a traffic signal or two, the report finds there’s no need to build new parking facilities or additional infrastructure beyond what’s already planned, such as an extension of Shields Avenue and Pascal Street, at least not in the short-term. Traffic challenges will mount over the next 20 years as the Midway Shopping Center is gradually redeveloped, the report states.

Those findings have skeptics scratching their heads and highlighting the experience of other Twin Cities stadiums, where public transit use is more limited.

Currently, 27 percent of Vikings fans get to games on public transit, though that figure is expected to break 30 percent in the new stadium, according to the team.

Metro Transit says that about 14 percent of baseball fans take public transit to Twins games and about 13 percent of Gophers football fans take mass transit to TCF Bank Stadium at the University of Minnesota.

At CHS Field, the new home of the St. Paul Saints in Lowertown, roughly 10 to 15 percent of patrons took the light rail downtown last year, its opening season. About 5 percent or “maybe a little less ride bikes, and I couldn’t tell you a specific number on walkers or the park-and-ride shuttles,” said Sean Aronson, a Saints spokesman.

Metro Transit provided 575,348 rides to and from the State Fair last year, a record ridership year for the State Fair Express Bus and regular routes. That includes express rides from 13 free park-and-ride locations and three regular bus routes. As a percentage of overall fair-goers, however, the results were modest: Riders amounted to 16 percent of total State Fair attendance, according to Metro Transit.

Soccer fans say that rather than draw attendees from the suburbs, Minnesota United’s primary fan base will be urban residents and younger visitors more inclined to jump on a bicycle or the light rail. The Union Park District Council has been working with graduate students from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and the Mondale School of Law at the University of Minnesota to explore how professional teams around the country encourage car-free travel to their stadiums.

Separate from the city’s draft assessment, or Alternative Urban Areawide Review, Metro Transit is having a study done of potential transit improvements in the Snelling-University area. Jon Commers, who represented the Met Council on the community advisory committee, said he was still working his way through the city’s report, but the combination of a high-profile destination and accessible transit looks promising. On Saturday, the Met Council will debut the A-Line, a rapid bus that connects the 46th Street Station in Minneapolis to the Rosedale Mall in Roseville via Ford Parkway and Snelling Avenue.

“Given the Green Line and the imminent unleashing of the A-Line, it is a highly accessible part of the region,” Commers said. “Green Line ridership is well beyond expectations. I think there’s an argument to be made that when the infrastructure is there … riders respond.”

Rachel E. Stassen-Berger contributed to this report.