Love, Buhler and Lambert said there may be ways the city could help without spending actual tax dollars. For instance, the city could issue industrial revenue bonds, which offer lower interest rates and don't risk tax dollars, or use Redevelopment Agency funds to secure land.

The city may have to step up to the plate financially to ensure that the soccer stadium, if one is built, isn't lost to the suburbs.

Mayor Rocky Anderson, who did not return calls seeking his position on supplying taxpayer funds for the project, is pushing for the stadium to be located in Salt Lake City and has talked with Cherokee Investment Partners about potential investment in a soccer stadium.

Cherokee is a real estate investment firm based in Raleigh, N.C., that acquires environmentally impaired assets. Essentially, what Cherokee does is purchase land valued between $10 million and $250 million, clean it up and then build on the property.

City leaders want the stadium downtown if at all possible, and the city has developed a map of the greater downtown area with various locations detailed as potential spots where the stadium could be located. One of those locations, according to sources who wished to remain anonymous, is the vacant block that billionaire Earl Holding owns just west of the Scott M. Matheson Courthouse and north of Holding's Little American Hotel, near West Temple and 500 South.

Still, some of those same sources say there is little chance Holding would give it up for a soccer stadium.

Other potential sites are industrial areas in the Gateway Mixed-Use District just west of downtown or on the 220 acres where Salt Lake City plans to build a sprawling sports complex with some 30 soccer fields and nearly a dozen softball diamonds.

The city has developed a memorandum of understanding with the state of Utah, which would facilitate the transfer of the 220-acre state-owned parcel where the sports complex is to be built, near the Davis County line between Redwood Road and I-215.

That memorandum still needs to be signed by state and city officials before a transfer of title could be worked up, Public Services Director Rick Graham said.

The city is moving forward with plans to build the sports complex on the site since that was the promise it made when voters approved a $15 million bond to fund the project, Graham said.

Putting an MLS soccer stadium on the site would be contingent on "to what extent Major League Soccer can do something without affecting what we've planned," Graham said.

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E-mail: bsnyder@desnews.com