NORMAL - As meetings aimed at bringing an independent minor league baseball team to Normal continue, consultant Mike Thiessen remains optimistic an accord will be reached.

"We're definitely starting to put a deal together," Thiessen said Tuesday. "We haven't got down to the screaming and yelling (to signify a closed deal), but everybody is still interested. We're starting to put pencil to paper with numbers."

A stadium would be built at a Heartland Community College site with the possibility of a team being ready for play next spring. The Northern League, Frontier League and American Association, all independent leagues, have expressed a desire to add a Normal franchise.

While Thiessen declined to reveal the identity of potential ownership groups, he indicated he has meetings scheduled for today, Thursday and Friday with separate groups.

"We're having second and third meetings with some groups, which to me is positive. We've had good meetings. They know what our parameters are," he said. "We're starting to see who has got what interest and what they are willing to bite off in terms of their financial commitment."

Thiessen is "working under the timeline" of a tentatively scheduled May 6 Heartland board meeting to have a deal in place. Heartland president Jon Astroth said last week the school needs to decide at that meeting whether or not to go forward with plans of its own for an athletic complex.

"We've got a good two weeks. I think we're going to be good," said Thiessen. "I think a couple (groups) will be falling off. We hope to get down to two or three horses instead of five or six."

Thiessen called negotiations "non traditional" because the Town of Normal and Heartland have said the ownership group would have to foot the majority of the expense involved with building a stadium and fielding a team.

"We're working through the bigger issues," he said. "We're trying to identify a potential (funding) gap, if there is one."