Houston ? Southern Methodist University has all but won the competition to host the George W. Bush presidential library, with officials announcing this week that the school will be the “sole focus” of talks next month.

That means the two other finalists – Baylor University and the University of Dallas – will wait on the sidelines as the selection committee enters what chairman Don Evans in a statement called the “next phase of deliberations.”

A final decision may come in late January or early February.

SMU, located in an upscale area north of downtown Dallas, had an edge from the start, largely because of its Bush connections.

Laura Bush is an SMU graduate and a member of the school’s board of trustees. Vice President Dick Cheney also served on the trustee board and was a diplomat-in-residence at the school’s John Taylor Center for Political Studies.