New Arena for Sioux Falls

[89rabbit]

Re: New Arena for Sioux Falls

If you can figure out a way to get 20,000+ people out of a 1 mile square area without any congestion and traffic jams, you're way more intellegent than I am.

You can't, even with tremendous access to Interstate highways that is the point.  Traffic is going to be an issue when you congregate large numbers of people into a small area. Why exasperate the problem by funneling that large group of people into a section of town that has infrastructure issues that are not easily or cheaply overcome, especially when you have better options at hand (and land that will be given to the City for the purposes of building a new arena).  Why set yourself up for failure?  That is my point.

It comes down to this simple question for me. Will it be easier to disperse large groups from a small area by using I-29 and I-229 or will it be easier at E. 6th St. and N. Weber Ave.?

I ask again, why build a home near an airport if you know that the noise is going to be a problem?  


Go State!  

[2002jack]

Re: New Arena for Sioux Falls

[quote author=collegewatcher link=1182984804/30#41 date=1183176853]2002jack: You may want to check out downtown Sioux Falls again. Open air bars and cafes, 5 or 6 special events per year that bring hundreds of thousands of people downtown, loft spaces that are full the minute they come available and for a really high price, and a full array of businesses. Downtown Sioux Falls has seen a wonderful revitalization, much of it in the last 5 years.

Concering downtown in relation to the interstate in other cities with new arenas:

Sioux City - 1 block
Fargo - 1 block
St. Paul - 2 blocks
Omaha - 1 block
Council Bluffs - 1 block
Green Bay - 1 block
Distance from downtown SF to Interstate - 1 mile (east) 2miles (south), and 2 miles to I-90 (north).

Good point.  I know to some 1 or 2 miles doesn't sound too bad, but now think about 10,000 to 15,000 people trying to leave this arena all at the same time.  Think about bumper to bumper traffic and all the stop lights you run into on that mile before you get to the relative freedom of the interstate.

From a parking stand point think about South Dakota in the winter is a block or two a long ways to walk.  Might people decide it isn't worth the hassle of fighting the traffic in and out and paying for parking?

Have you ever thought "man I had to park all the way out there" (and been a little grumpy about it) for a Jackrabbit game or at some event at the Sioux Falls Arena.  Will it be better or worse at a new downtown arena in Sioux Falls?

Kemper Arena in Kansas City is a great example of what not to do.  It is an arena built in the wrong part of town, the "West Bottoms" an industrial section just a little ways from downtown.   It was supposed to revitalize the old stock yard district.  It didn't.   It is in the wrong part of town, and people don't want to go there.  The parking is bad and the access to the Interstate, although close (.7 miles away), is horrible if the place is packed.  I remember sitting in a parking garage for over an hour after a George Strait concert.

Does Kemper have special events that do well?  Sure when the Big 12 tourney is in town they sell all 19,500 seats.  However both the Kansas City Kings (NBA) and Kansas City Scouts (NHL) failed in Kemper Arena (partly due to its location).  The Sprint Center (18,000 + seats) is being built about 1.5 miles away and it sounds like the Nashville Predators (NHL) are ready to move and call it home.  In this case 1.5 miles makes all the difference in the world.  The Sprint Center will have great Interstate access (one block to I-670 and just a few blocks to I-70, I-35, and US HWY71).  Parking won’t be great but that is always an issue with a downtown arena, but it won’t be any worse then Kemper (and people in Kansas City are used to paying for downtown parking .  .  .  what about South Dakotans?).  

Again I don’t really care where Sioux Falls builds their new arena, as long as they build it, I just have some concerns.  I do remember going to a production of Romeo and Juliet (on a date), while I was attending SDSU as a student, put on at the Orpheum Theater downtown (a traveling troop from Washington DC, it was a very good performance) and I recall feeling that it was hard to get to the Orpheum as compared to say the current Sioux Falls Arena.  Now a lot has changed since then (Sioux Falls has certainly gotten much bigger) and I know this is not the exact location where the new arena has been proposed.  However the Orpheum had no where near the capacity that the new Arena will have.

I am far away from this situation, and I have not really studied the need for downtown revitalization in Sioux Falls.  My opinions are driven more by my experiences as a user of such venues in a general sense.  The one thing I can tell you (having gotten home from a KC Royals game not so long ago) is that once an event is over I am ready to get on the road and get home.  I hate sitting in traffic.  The hardest part even with great interstate access is getting out of the parking lot when you have 20,585 (tonight's attendance - kind of rainy in KC so the crowd was light) are all trying to leave at the same time.  From a users stand point access to transportation corridors and the efficient disbursement of a crowd is paramount.

Go State!  [/quote]

I guess we are just local yokels who can't handle the thought of paying to park our car. Let's go make love to a cousin or two. Give me a break. Does S.F. want to be a metropolitan area, or smalltown U.S.A. I guess that can be part of the debate as well.

[89rabbit]

Re: New Arena for Sioux Falls

I guess we are just local yokels who can't handle the thought of paying to park our car.  Let's go make love to a cousin or two.  Give me a break.  Does S.F. want to be a metropolitan area, or smalltown U.S.A.  I guess that can be part of the debate as well.

Easy there partner.  I am a native of the great state of South Dakota and I had no intention of casting dispersions on my fellow South Dakotans and I take a certain amount of offense to you trying to depict my post that way.  > 

I said Kansas Citians are used to paying for parking downtown that doesn't mean we like it.  I remember nixing a job offer from a downtown business because I didn't want the hassle of paying for and finding a parking spot in a garage everyday (I had done it for a year and a half when I first came to KC and didn't want to do it again).

Paying to park at a downtown arena vs. free parking at a less land locked facility is a legitimate point of contention.  

Again simple question, if you are going to a Skyforce game would you rather park for free or pay to park?  My momma didn't raise any fools, I will take free parking every time and it is not because I was born in South Dakota.  


Go State!  

[2002jack]

Re: New Arena for Sioux Falls

If we are talking about the Skyforce, then the 6200 capacity arena is suitable.

[collegewatcher]

Re: New Arena for Sioux Falls

2002jack: Let me clarify what I posted. It should have said:

"Arenas in relation to the Interstate". Many of those happen to be downtown. My mistake.

And no, as could see from my other posts, I do not want the arena downtown. However, your statement about downtown was just plain not true.

I will try to keep from putting two distinct and seperate thoughts into the same post.

[1stRowFANatic]

Re: New Arena for Sioux Falls

2002jack - the argument that the event center is necessary to generate new business and redevelop downtown is just flat wrong. The Phillips to the Falls redevelopment has been approved. It was proposed and approved without a downtown events center. The plan is not contingent on the downtown event center. Would those businesses like to have it downtown? Of course, but that doesn't mean it is the right place to put it. Downtown Sioux Falls has changed dramatically in the last ten years, and that is primarily due to the fact that Sioux Falls has grown so much. Downtown SF will continue to grow and get better with or without the event center. IMHO, the issue is where is the best place for the event center to be so that it is a successful event center.

[NightHawk78]

Re: New Arena for Sioux Falls

http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs...NEWS/711110310

http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs...NEWS/711110311

http://www.keloland.com/NewsDetail6162.cfm?Id=0,63054

Well, it looks like that there will be another push to get a new Sioux Falls event center built as the "Coliseum Exploratory Group" has been working on a new plan. Highlights:

1) The site would be next to the Arena and Convention Center.
2) Howard Wood Field would be demolished.
3) The Fargodome is serving as a model for the proposed center.
4) The business proposal under works calls for a major donor to provide about half of the estimated $100 million cost of the center. Most of the facility costs would be raised by private donors.
4a) Group members include Kelby Krabbenhoft of Sanford Health and Dana Dykhouse, president and CEO of First Premier Bank.
5) The facility would be large enough to house an indoor football field and 14,000 in seating, with a possible capacity of 20,000 for concerts...capacity for building expansion would likely exist.

[sfsd]

Re: New Arena for Sioux Falls

How this will fly, I'm not sure. The idea of demolishing Howard Wood strikes me as a major sticking point -- it is ingrained in the fabric of Sioux Falls residents' collective minds. And while this group says most of the money will be donated, there still will need to be public contribution -- always a major factor to the leery Sioux Falls voters and the key reason for "pushback" they're talking about.

Not to mention that the location for this new venue belongs to Sioux Falls Public Schools. This is one major question that never had to be addressed with the Fargodome. Will the schools be allowed to use this venue for high school football for free, or will they have to rent it out? Because HW is used more than 100-110 days a year when you take into account high school football practice every day and games on Fridays and Saturdays, track meets and practices, soccer games, marching band competitions, Augie and USF games (which will disappear with their new fields), the Airstream event, etc. That's all revenue to the school district, if I'm not correct. If HW vanished, the four public schools then would have to find somewhere to play football ... which likely would mean renting someone else's facility (USF/Augie/proposed coliseum) at a cost to the taxpayers or building new ones for the schools. One would hope the schools would be greatly compensated for HW in this proposal or at least cut a free usage deal if they're giving up land.

And what about the track facility that Howard Wood provides? The Relays would vanish, as would all that revenue for the schools. Would you build a 14,000-20,000 seat dome stadium with a gaudy-looking, immovable track around a full-sized football?

As for concerts, they can barely get people to go to the few big-name shows they get at the Arena, and that has 12,000 fewer seats. Shows at the Pavillion are rarely if ever sold out, either. It might compete with Sioux City for marginally big acts, and it would lose because 1) Tyson Center is right off 29, and 2) Omaha/Council Bluffs is a lot closer to Sioux City in order to draw more fans. So, too, is Des Moines for real die-hards. And when have you ever seen a band play Omaha AND Sioux City? It's redundant. So, too, would Sioux Falls and Fargo or Sioux Falls and Sioux City. You'd see them play perhaps Sioux Falls and Omaha, or Fargo and Sioux City, even Fargo and Omaha....but no major act would play all four. To think otherwise is to be ignorant to the fact that there just isn't the population base, let along a concert-going one, in the region.

I'm all for a new arena in Sioux Falls -- without question it's about time for one. And this plan does have plenty of merits, as something like this MUST be near the major highways to be successful. But it seems like Kelby's putting together another rush job on this ("We're not going to burn a lot of daylight on this"), just like the whole Vikings proposal. THAT really turned off voters as well. It's always as if it's trying to hurry up and not let the public vote, but these types of things always end up going to one and get shot down (look at the timeline -- being brought up just after an election and hoping to take action by the summer during a presidential election year). The only way to get something like this to work is to stop trying to avoid voters and start actively working at winning them over. Boldly accept a vote on it if you think you've got everything figured out and well-planned, don't rush and duck.

[JimmyJack]

Re: New Arena for Sioux Falls

I'm guessing the private money is already committed. Here we have two of Sanford's top people leading this effort that includes the potential of a single donor of $50 million. Hmm... I wonder who that is.

The school superintendent seems open to it. There will be two new stadiums in Sioux Falls next year for high school teams to play in. They could spend $12 million and have little more than a slightly better Howard Wood... which I think we can all agree is a craphole.

I'd say the odds are good for this one.

[joeboo22]

Re: New Arena for Sioux Falls

I'm guessing the private money is already committed. Here we have two of Sanford's top people leading this effort that includes the potential of a single donor of $50 million. Hmm... I wonder who that is.

The school superintendent seems open to it. There will be two new stadiums in Sioux Falls next year for high school teams to play in. They could spend $12 million and have little more than a slightly better Howard Wood... which I think we can all agree is a craphole.

I'd say the odds are good for this one.

I noticed that you have Sanfords right hand man at Premier and his right hand man at Sanford Health I don't think the money is too big of a problem.... I have to agree though that Howard Wood isn't what it once was, it was the first to have a track like that but now a lot of high schools have tracks like that it was the first to have field turf but now a lot more stadiums have it....

Don't get confused with the Fargodome comparison I think it is only how they built it from my understandings this won't be a football dome it will be a 14-20 thousand basketball/hockey/arena football arena. Fargo is similar to the size of Sioux Falls and used I believe a half cent sales tax for somewhere between 10-15 year not for sure.

There is only 3 public schools that use the field O'Gorman uses McCanany (sp) and SFC will use USF's field.... you also have to remember that its Sanfords football stadium that USF uses so I would think something could be worked out there.

Overall I like the plan I would like to have a new whole convention center arena('s) with office space and a parking ramp out of town but I think everybody knows that Sioux Falls isn't going to approve this so rather then see an arena out of town and the rest of the convention center to be where it is today I like this plan better.

[jackrabit1]

Re: New Arena for Sioux Falls

I'd like to see a Fargodome-like set up in Sioux Falls... Just think of the moolah Sioux Falls could get by hosting the State High School Football Championships!

[joeboo22]

Re: New Arena for Sioux Falls

How this will fly, I'm not sure. The idea of demolishing Howard Wood strikes me as a major sticking point -- it is ingrained in the fabric of Sioux Falls residents' collective minds. And while this group says most of the money will be donated, there still will need to be public contribution -- always a major factor to the leery Sioux Falls voters and the key reason for "pushback" they're talking about.

Not to mention that the location for this new venue belongs to Sioux Falls Public Schools. This is one major question that never had to be addressed with the Fargodome. Will the schools be allowed to use this venue for high school football for free, or will they have to rent it out? Because HW is used more than 100-110 days a year when you take into account high school football practice every day and games on Fridays and Saturdays, track meets and practices, soccer games, marching band competitions, Augie and USF games (which will disappear with their new fields), the Airstream event, etc. That's all revenue to the school district, if I'm not correct. If HW vanished, the four public schools then would have to find somewhere to play football ... which likely would mean renting someone else's facility (USF/Augie/proposed coliseum) at a cost to the taxpayers or building new ones for the schools. One would hope the schools would be greatly compensated for HW in this proposal or at least cut a free usage deal if they're giving up land.

And what about the track facility that Howard Wood provides? The Relays would vanish, as would all that revenue for the schools. Would you build a 14,000-20,000 seat dome stadium with a gaudy-looking, immovable track around a full-sized football?

As for concerts, they can barely get people to go to the few big-name shows they get at the Arena, and that has 12,000 fewer seats. Shows at the Pavillion are rarely if ever sold out, either. It might compete with Sioux City for marginally big acts, and it would lose because 1) Tyson Center is right off 29, and 2) Omaha/Council Bluffs is a lot closer to Sioux City in order to draw more fans. So, too, is Des Moines for real die-hards. And when have you ever seen a band play Omaha AND Sioux City? It's redundant. So, too, would Sioux Falls and Fargo or Sioux Falls and Sioux City. You'd see them play perhaps Sioux Falls and Omaha, or Fargo and Sioux City, even Fargo and Omaha....but no major act would play all four. To think otherwise is to be ignorant to the fact that there just isn't the population base, let along a concert-going one, in the region.

I'm all for a new arena in Sioux Falls -- without question it's about time for one. And this plan does have plenty of merits, as something like this MUST be near the major highways to be successful. But it seems like Kelby's putting together another rush job on this ("We're not going to burn a lot of daylight on this"), just like the whole Vikings proposal. THAT really turned off voters as well. It's always as if it's trying to hurry up and not let the public vote, but these types of things always end up going to one and get shot down (look at the timeline -- being brought up just after an election and hoping to take action by the summer during a presidential election year). The only way to get something like this to work is to stop trying to avoid voters and start actively working at winning them over. Boldly accept a vote on it if you think you've got everything figured out and well-planned, don't rush and duck.

Howard Wood is in the plans of being rentovated they want to put 6-8 million into it.... I don't think the football stadium is the sticking point because I think everybody know that its a stadium that is too big for the high schools and to small to get SDSU or USD to show up. The relays are planned to be held at USF's stadium if they rentovated HW for that year.

I think the problem with concerts is they never get anybody good to show up, its hard to do that when you have a pathetically accustic small arena its hard to get anybody to play in it and its hard to make money when you have such a small margin to start off with. The pavilion is ran like **** I will agree with anybody there it should have everything there high school plays, high school oral interpt and all those kind of things but that is a different issue.

As far as being too far from the interstate I agree I wish they would build it out of town but if you do that you have an arena and that is it no convention center no parking not much, compared to whee they want to build it which already has an existing infastructor. And where it is isn't too far from the interstate and many people already know where it is. Already has the Hotel as part of it has the hotel with a swimming park across the street.

[joeboo22]

Re: New Arena for Sioux Falls

I'd like to see a Fargodome-like set up in Sioux Falls... Just think of the moolah Sioux Falls could get by hosting the State High School Football Championships!

I don't think that the high school football championships is all its cut out to be economically, most teams come the day of and leave afterwards or if they stay they go to Yankton, there is 1 game and that is it. Compared to wrestling or basketball which is spread out over 2-3 days with built in breaks which encourages fans to go out on the town and people have to spend the night in hotel rooms.

[jackrabit1]

Re: New Arena for Sioux Falls

Well, I just remember going out to find someplace to eat after I did the Tri-Valley game Thursday. There was NO PLACE open in Vermin, save for the drive-through McDonalds.

Frankly, I'd like to see the championships in a place a bit more visitor-friendly. Besides, you have six teams and (ideally) six towns coming in over a span of three days. Sioux Falls has the hotels, restaurants, and venues to make this something special. Why not build a "Fallsdome" and bring these contests here?

[joeboo22]

Re: New Arena for Sioux Falls

Well, I just remember going out to find someplace to eat after I did the Tri-Valley game Thursday. There was NO PLACE open in Vermin, save for the drive-through McDonalds.

Frankly, I'd like to see the championships in a place a bit more visitor-friendly. Besides, you have six teams and (ideally) six towns coming in over a span of three days. Sioux Falls has the hotels, restaurants, and venues to make this something special. Why not build a "Fallsdome" and bring these contests here?

Because it cost way to much for too little of a reward a basketball arena would be ideal it is needed and don't say use the same facility because it is a joke when they use football stadiums for basketball games except for the final 4. you have 12 teams playing in the high school football games but most of them are in the region hardly any stay over night and other then getting a bite to eat they don't do much else. I think people need to realize that dome won't do any good in Sioux Falls, by next year they will have 2 nice football stadiums for the colleges so why spend 150 million on another one if anything try to get it so the play the state games outside I think it is a joke that they play indoors indoor football is for girls. i just think it would be foolish to build a dome when 2 of your tennents now have there own stadiums, you have a dome an hour to the south and the school an hour to the north has announced plans to start remodelling there stadium, can somebody please explain to me why Sioux Falls needs a dome? If this would of been 10-15 years ago it may of been different but not now. A nice basketball arena with a sheet of ice and the ability to play Arena/indoor football in is fine with me.