A new wrinkle developed in the Minnesota Vikings' stadium strategy on Friday, when team officials said they are looking at federal stimulus money to help them build a new home that just might be located in the suburbs.

Vikings' spokesman Lester Bagley told a real estate gathering in Minneapolis that private developers and local government officials have also approached the team about a half dozen potential Twin Cities suburban sites. Bagley would not say where, but some signs pointed to Dayton, near Interstate 94 in western Hennepin County, as a possible home.

To help finance the deal, the Vikings are exploring federal Build America Bonds, along with a possible 2 percent increase in the hospitality tax across the seven-county metro area.

Bagley's comments were the first public signs of a tentative blueprint for how the team might assemble a public financing package at the Legislature, which convenes in two weeks.

His remarks also came just as the team prepares for its biggest game of the season -- against the New Orleans Saints on Sunday for the NFC championship. The winner goes to the Super Bowl.

Bagley said the federal bonds could provide up to $1 million a year to help make interest payments on a stadium, which is projected to cost $870 million.

Minnesota's top state budget official, Tom Hanson, who spoke Friday to the same group, said state officials have not used the bond program and that any proposal -- including one from the Vikings -- would need legislative approval.

Kathy Kardell, an assistant commissioner under Hanson at the Minnesota Management and Budget Office, said a study would be needed to determine whether a Vikings stadium could be defined as a "governmental purpose" under federal tax law.

The Illinois Business Journal reported that Southern Illinois University last year used Build America Bonds to help finance a new 15,000-seat football stadium and help expand its basketball arena.

Kardell said agency officials have been asked by representatives from Gov. Tim Pawlenty's office to investigate other possible bonding strategies, but most had been discarded as unworkable.

Bill Lester, the executive director of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, which owns the Metrodome, said Bagley's comments Friday made public new details of the team's possible financial strategies.

"What's significant is he's never said them to the public before," Lester said of the proposal.

Other pieces of finance puzzle

Although no one financing proposal would by itself pay for the stadium, Bagley said all were being explored as part of a public subsidy package.

Bagley said that an increase in the hospitality tax, similar to what was used in the late 1970s and '80s to finance the Metrodome could generate another $15 million annually.

That, he said, could be added to the Vikings' push to divert the estimated $20 million they say the team generates yearly in sales taxes.

Team officials said diverting that money, plus the addition of new tax revenue, could equal the estimated $29 million to $42 million annually that would be needed for the project.

Brian McClung, a Pawlenty spokesman, said Friday that while the Vikings and the governor's office were meeting about the stadium, there had been no "specific proposals."

Bagley said the team was frustrated with critics who keep asking how much the Vikings were willing to commit to a stadium. "Why is it on us to talk about our investment? Where's the public side of the equation?" asked Bagley, who added the National Football League and owner Zygi Wilf have consistently talked of contributing a third of the stadium's estimated cost. The team's goal this year at the Legislature, he said, would be "to put [the stadium] in a position to be resolved" before the team's Metrodome lease expires in 2011.

Bye, bye Minneapolis?

Bagley's hints at a suburban location for a stadium were intriguing but came with few details, and left unclear whether the team was serious about moving to the suburbs or was simply building political leverage.

Bagley said each of the half dozen potential sites could involve public subsidies. Should they move from its cramped downtown location, he said, the Vikings would want some room -- 270 to 300 acres with a mass transit option. "A number of communities have come forward," Bagley said.

The latest speculation about a move outside the city surfaced last week, when Doug Anderson, the mayor of Dayton, a small city in western Hennepin County near Rogers and Hassan Township, projected the Vikings logo on a large screen as part of a Power Point presentation at an Anoka Area Chamber of Commerce meeting. "There has been a little [Vikings stadium] talk with property owners to the south of us who are considering something," Anderson said.

The Beard Group, a Hopkins developer, has access to 637 acres in Hassan Township that is the designated home of the Stones Throw project, which would include more than 1,400 housing units and a mall with up-scale stores.

Asked whether his group was negotiating with the Vikings, Gump said, "I can't make any comments about who we're talking to. ... I can't confirm or deny anything."

When reminded of the reference to the Vikings made by the city of Dayton, Gump said, "I wish that logo didn't pop up."

Mike Kaszuba • 651-222-1673 Paul Levy • 612-673-4419