NORMAL - Heartland Community College president Jon Astroth expects the school to decide at a Tuesday meeting on campus whether to proceed with a proposal from a group interested in building a minor league baseball stadium at a Heartland site or go forward with plans for its own athletic complex.

"We should have any proposals from potential stadium owners in hand by then, and we'll have bids on our separate project in hand by then," Astroth said Thursday. "The purpose of the meeting is to say whether any of the stadium proposals are viable, what do the bids look like on our own project and what do we take as a result of those two things."

Astroth called the potential of an ownership group building a privately owned stadium and bringing an independent minor league team to Normal "a possibility, no question.

"Potential owners continue to be interested and talk to us," Astroth said. "They like the Bloomington-Normal and McLean County market real well. Once we get down to numbers, we'll have a better feel for whether it works or not."

Astroth expects Heartland and the Town of Normal to have those numbers soon.

"I think we'll know early next week whether it's worth having any more discussion about the stadium or not," he said. "The Town of Normal will help us assess stadium proposals."

Heartland would contribute money it had earmarked for its own complex and the town will be involved in infrastructure financing. But ownership groups have been made aware of the limit to which their efforts will be subsidized.

"Some have been less than enthusiastic (about that)," said Astroth. "But more than one serious group is pursuing it under the guidelines we set out with very limited funding."

The Heartland president said both the Hawks' baseball and softball teams would play in whatever stadium is built. A temporary fence would be brought in for softball games.

"We have said in meetings this has got to be multi-sport for us," Astroth said. "If (after the construction of a stadium) we would still have to have a soccer field, a practice soccer field and a softball field, that doesn't get us very far. There would have to be Astro Turf to take this kind of wear and tear.

"It would be double duty or even triple duty. It would be easy enough to do softball and baseball, but soccer might be a little trickier."

The overlap of seasons would be minimal. The regular seasons for Heartland baseball and softball are done by late April or early May, while the minor league baseball season would not begin until mid May.

Consultant Mike Thiessen, who has been negotiating with prospective ownership groups, said he asked for final bids to be submitted to him by today.

"I feel good. I'm expecting three really strong bids to come in. I know they all have the financial wherewithal to do so," Thiessen said. "We asked them to boil it down to a very simple request. We asked them what they need from Heartland, what they need as far as roads and infrastructure (from Normal) and what they are going to put in."

Of the three independent leagues which have expressed a desire to add a Normal team, the American Association is the least likely, according to Thiessen.

"Maybe the American Association is not as interested as we thought, but when they send it (a bid) in maybe that's where they want to be," said Thiessen. "If I was to handicap it right now, it would be the Frontier League or Northern League."