Also: With Minnesota United FC stadium, Midway neighborhood prepares for big change

Also: Fans excited at prospect of accessible MLS soccer in St. Paul

Chalk one up for St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman. He has wrested Major League Soccer from Minneapolis.

Whether or not St. Paul’s big brother to the west was full-heartedly interested, this seems like a victory — a $250 million private investment that has the potential to reshape a vital but economically moribund part of town while drawing visitors from all over the metro area.

And then there is the fact that Minnesota United FC’s decision to plant its MLS expansion franchise in St. Paul’s Midway left a sense of loss — and some anger — on the other side of the river.

“I wish it could have been here,” said Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin, who months ago presented Minnesota United with a financing plan to keep the team on target for Minneapolis.

Credit Coleman, whose full-court press on United resulted in a joint news conference with team owner Bill McGuire on Friday announcing a partnership to build a 19,000-seat, open-air soccer stadium at the corner of University and Snelling avenues near Interstate 94.

“You cannot enter a project of this size, magnitude and cost without having partners that are dedicated and committed the same way,” McGuire said of Coleman. “You just have to do it. And he’s committed.”

Certainly Coleman was more willing to give McGuire and his partners what they wanted: tax-free property. When awarded the expansion franchise in March, McGuire said his group would finance the stadium ($120 million), land ($30 million) and expansion fee ($100 million) but wanted tax-exempt land and a break on construction taxes.

For Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges, that was a non-starter.

“Certainly I was interested in soccer coming to Minneapolis, and I still am,” Hodges said Friday, “but Minnesota United decides where it goes, and that includes the availability of permanent, tax-free land. If that was their one priority, they seem to have found a partner in St. Paul where leadership thinks that will work.”

McLaughlin said Hodges’ property stance torpedoed Minneapolis’ chances.

“Mayor Hodges dumped cold water on (the stadium) in public, and from what I understand she dumped cold water on it in private with investors and sponsors,” McLaughlin said. “So, what are you going to do? Private money goes where it wants to go. They were not welcome here.”

Not true, said Hodges. In an effort to recalibrate the negotiation parameters, she reached out to McGuire, the billionaire former CEO of UnitedHealth Group, and partners such as Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor and Bill Pohlad, part of the Twins ownership family. Crickets.

There seems to have been some disbelief on United’s part. The state just gave the Vikings nearly $500 million — $150 million directly from Minneapolis under then-Mayor R.T. Rybak — and Hennepin County helped pay for the lion’s share of the Twins stadium with a 0.15-cent, countywide sales tax. Surely, they thought, a property tax break isn’t out of line.

McLaughlin’s plan would have solved that and had the team playing in Minneapolis’ North Loop near Target Field. It would have tapped into the Twins bonds to pay for infrastructure upgrades around the stadium, and property tax would have disappeared when the team donated the stadium to the Ballpark Authority that owns Target Field.

If you’re wondering whether the team balked at that requirement, McGuire said Friday the team is donating the stadium to St. Paul.

That’s a bitter pill to swallow for stadium supporters in Minneapolis.

“Private investments of $250 million to areas that are rough around the edges don’t come along very often,” said Minneapolis City Councilman Jacob Frey. “And when they do, you can’t slam the door.”

Frey believes that despite a sense of “stadium fatigue” after bankrolling the Twins’ and Vikings’ new homes, there was majority support for soccer on the Minneapolis City Council, and Hodges doesn’t disagree.

The sticking point was the property tax, which even now will have to be approved by the State Legislature during its next session. McGuire said the team plans to break ground in May or June, immediately after the session ends.

“I reached out multiple times about other things we could do, about ways we could work together to enhance the project for them and the city,” Hodges said. “But it was clear the criteria was paying no property taxes forever.”

That was OK with Coleman and St. Paul. It just might be worth it.

Follow John Shipley at twitter.com/shipleykid.