ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP)—A Florida Suncoast Dome contractor has been asked to draw up contingency plans to accelerate construction of the baseball stadium the Chicago White Sox are considering as a future home.

Rick Dodge, the assistant city manager inxolved in the effort to bring the American League team to Florida, has confirmed that officials are eyeing an April 1989 opening that would replace the scheduled fall 1989 completion date.

Dodge, however, refused to answer questions about the White Sox, whose owners are seeking a new stadium in Chicago but have been frustrated by a lack of progress toward a replacement for aging Comiskey Park.

Zipperly Hardage Associates, the consultant supervising the Florida Suncoast Dome project, is studyig the feasibility and cost of finishing the 43,000-seat stadium early.

Price estimates are being determined for accelerating construction in April, May or June 1988, said Tim Ackert of Zipperly Hardage.

“What we’re attempting to do is see what parts of the job can be double-shifted,” Ackert said.

Jerry Reinsdorf, a White Sox owner, told the St. Petersburg Times the club faces a deadline for deciding whether to stay in Chicago next year.

“If we haven’t given notice by July 1, we’re not coming in 1989,” Reinsdorf said.

Of the unfinished work on the $85 million stadium in downtown St. Petersburg, the most critical is building a tension-supported cable roof that the developers say will be the largest of its kind in the world.

Ackert said the roof contractor could work from dawn to dark during the summer. But assembling a cable roof at night is out of the question, and “you want to stay away from a lot of overtime because of the dangers involved in working 150 feet off the ground.”

He added that if construction is accelerated for completion by the opening month of the 1989 baseball season, the stadium would have a roof, seats, lockers, air conditioning and equipment required by fire codes.

What it might not include, however, are permanent concession stands or completed offices and suites, Ackert said.