Hennepin County has told the Minnesota Twins that building a new ballpark at a preferred site in downtown Minneapolis could likely require the team to spend more money, and has identified six sites across the metro area that could serve as an alternative location for a stadium.

The newest disclosures come as county negotiators and a limited liability partnership that controls the 8-acre stadium site remain at an impasse over the sale price, with both sides publicly faulting one another for the standoff.

The delay has already forced the Twins to postpone an unveiling of the stadium's detailed design, pushed back this month's site preparation work and threatened to undermine the start of major construction in August.

Hennepin County Commissioner Mike Opat, the lead stadium negotiator for the County Board, said he has tentatively identified six sites that could serve as a substitute location for the 40,000-seat, open-air ballpark.

The sites, he said, include a 40-acre parcel near the new Target Co. campus in Brooklyn Park, property owned by the Star Tribune near the Metrodome, and the Farmers Market on the near North Side of downtown Minneapolis.

In Brooklyn Park, investor David Nelson said he had spoken to Opat and local officials about a 40-acre parcel along Hwy. 610 owned by a three-person limited partnership.

"If it's not going to work," Nelson said of the downtown Minneapolis site, "why not look at Brooklyn Park?"

While the idea of looking for another site has gained some traction, it is seen in other corners as a negotiating ploy more than a reality. Moving to another location would require legislative approval and would likely threaten a 2010 opening date for a new stadium.

Opat nonetheless said other sites being explored were property along the Mississippi River near Dowling Avenue in north Minneapolis, an undisclosed parcel in St. Louis Park and the Brookdale Mall property that Opat said previously was not greeted with enthusiasm by the Twins.

Opat, however, said the county, for the time being, remained committed to the so-called Rapid Park property owned by the Land Partners II limited liability partnership. But he said that in talks with the team, including a session over the past weekend, county officials said that a series of other issues - and not just the land-sale impasse - were making the project "more complicated than we thought, and more expensive."