Real Salt Lake officials say they could decide by month's end where to build a $60 million to $65 million Major League Soccer stadium, which would be publicly and privately financed.

Team owner Dave Checketts is in town, along with a national stadium developer who specializes in projects that combine sports venues with housing, stores and offices. But where the team is headed remains a mystery - even to city officials vying for the facility.

"No decision has been made," said team CEO Dean Howes, adding that he expects things to "come to a head pretty quick."

Sandy remains the most optimistic - and anxious that a decision be made soon. If RSL waits much longer, Salt Lake County wouldn't be able to buy land for a stadium near 9400 South and State Street. The city's lobbyists huddled with County Mayor Peter Corroon this week to urge him to help make a Sandy stadium happen.

"They [team officials] have got to do something in the next 30 days or it's just too late," Sandy Mayor Tom Dolan said Wednesday. "The impression we were receiving a month and a half ago was they were serious about the site."

Other stadium contenders that have been publicly mentioned aren't so confident:

l Murray Mayor Dan Snarr said he hasn't heard from the team about property near a TRAX stop at 4400 South. "Maybe we're out of the running if they aren't talking to us. If they are having negotiations, it isn't with us. "

l Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, who wants the stadium at the Utah State Fairpark, met with Checketts on Tuesday but refused to say what the meeting was about. Rick Frenette, fairpark executive director, said he "hasn't heard a word."

l Neither has John Williams, who suggested the team build the stadium on 10 acres his company, Gastronomy, owns at 400 West and 200 North. "I must not be in the running."

l Nothing has changed with Earl Holding's property downtown, said Clint Ensign. Block 40, south of the federal courthouse at 400 South and Main, remains unavailable. The team also wanted to be on Holding's Block 22, 600 South and Main, but state legislation prevents the city from buying it for the team. "We haven't heard anything," Ensign said.

While at least one state lawmaker and one Salt Lake County Council member want the team to stay at the University of Utah's Rice-Eccles Stadium beyond its first two seasons, the U. has not entered into negotiations to extend the lease.

The team could pick a site that hasn't been named.

Salt Lake Chamber President Lane Beattie figures RSL probably isn't going to any of the sites in Salt Lake City because he hasn't heard anything. "It must mean they're probably looking south."

That would suit House Speaker Greg Curtis, R-Sandy. The powerful Sandy stadium booster said he hopes to hear "good news" when the team makes its decision. "Months ago they [the team] were talking with the property owners [in Sandy]. I was told they had an option [to buy]."

As of Wednesday, the 20 acres pigeonholed in Sandy for the stadium remained in the hands of a family.

Salt Lake County is not waiting around for RSL. It must build a parking garage for its South Towne Expo Center in Sandy and is seeking bids for architectural drawings. But Mayor Dolan wants to use the garage money instead to build a surface lot and pour the balance into buying land for a soccer stadium. The financial boost, Dolan and Curtis say, should make Sandy the stadium favorite.

Dolan, and Sandy's lobbying firm, The Tetris Group, cringed recently when the county sought bids for a garage, not a parking lot.

Tetris lobbyists have told Corroon they expect the stadium in Sandy. But they backed away from that assurance this week.

"We don't know what Real's going to do," Tetris principal Dan Hartman said Wednesday. "That's not spinning it. That's not playing coy."

Corroon says he never thought the Sandy deal was done - "trust, but verify," he says - and wants to hear it from the team.

"Until we have Real come in and tell us what their decision is, I don't know where it's going," Corroon said.

The team is negotiating with a group called Global Development Partners, whose principal William Lauterbach is in Salt Lake City and has visited before. The company, with offices in Washington, D.C.; Vienna, Va., and London, recently purchased the MLS soccer team D.C. United.

The company and its affiliates prefer mixed-use developments - one $330 million project calls for a minor-league baseball stadium in Virginia surrounded by housing, shops and offices. Such a bent would seem to give the edge to Murray or Sandy because more land is available. But Global also likes to develop in downtowns.

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Tribune reporter Jacob Santini contributed to this story.