A day after St. Paul’s Midway District was identified as the probable home for a new Major League Soccer team and stadium, officials on the western side of the river weren’t giving up.

“It is premature to draw any conclusions,” Hennepin County Commissioner Mike Opat said Thursday. “These things tend to have five lives.”

Minneapolis City Council President Barbara Johnson wasn’t rolling over, either. “Until the shovel’s in the ground, I’m hopeful,” she said.

On Wednesday, several sources with knowledge of the situation told the Star Tribune that Minnesota United team officials have chosen St. Paul for the stadium. If the site wins the approval of MLS officials, the $150 million venue, to be paid for by an ownership group led by Bill McGuire, would be built on a transit-friendly tract on Snelling Avenue between University Avenue and Interstate 94.

Opat, Johnson and others reacting Thursday said they have received no direct confirmation from the ownership group. And representatives of that group have not confirmed a shift in their preference away from putting an 18,000-seat soccer stadium on an industrial site near the Minneapolis Farmers Market.

— Rochelle Olson, Minneapolis Star Tribune