I attended the open house on Thursday that Sioux Steel held at Josiah’s. Ironically I got in the last word (FF: 32:00) but the whole presentation is worth listening to. LISTEN HERE.
I really think this is an opportunity for a DT business/developer to create a space without the interference of city government but with genuine public input to create a unique mixed use space we can be proud of instead of some tin paneled multi-plex apartment or parking structure.
They should tear it all down and everything around it, including Raven, and restore Seney Island…..
Seney Now! 😉
http://www.greetingsfromsiouxfalls.com/PostcardScans/Images/Parks/PC-H-F-Greetings-From-SF.html
“…..instead of some tin paneled multiplex apartment”….
Boy, isn’t that the truth. When these tin buildings first started to show up, I thought they were cool, but not any more. There are too many of them and they make neighborhoods feel cold and no longer cool; and architecture now days, I am afraid, has become too cookie cutter and has lost its individualism…
But on a more serious note, if we cannot have Seney back, which I realize is not a credible hope, then I hope they keep most of Sioux Steel as it is, absence their “pup tents,” that is….
However, I have a self interest in this matter too I must admit, because I grew up with Sioux Steel. My parents for over thirty years from 1954 to 1984 held the janitorial account for that business, which was a side business for my Father as his full-time job was with the Great Northern/Burlington Northern RR back then.
I have many memories of Sioux Steel emptying waste baskets, cleaning toilets, vacuuming, sweeping, and helping with the waxing of the floors as well there. No worries though, it wasn’t child labor abuse, because most of the aforementioned memories were when I was a able teenager. When I was a child helping my parents there, it was more about me stealing office candy (sorry 🙁 ), and getting in trouble for playing with office calculators and typewriters.
Where is the overall fondness for these memories you might ask? Well, unlike most children in Sioux Falls growing up in the old southwest part of town with a strong middle class back then, and a local bank president as our next door neighbor, I had an opportunity to get to know Sioux Falls and especially downtown Sioux Falls. I learned to love its architecture and to appreciate it history. Because unlike most kids from “Sioux Falls suburbia” I was downtown about five or six times a week mostly at night with my parents cleaning Sioux Steel and enjoying the sites of the City. I especially loved it when the street Christmas lights showed up or Fantle’s department store decorated their display windows with animated Christmas themes. And I find it amazing that that little neighborhood or street, which makes up Sioux Steel, still looks the same has it did when I was a kid and my guess for most of the last century too. So I hope they keep most of Sioux Steel intact in an exterior sense, but not for my memories, but because I think we destroy too many things in our society today with our throw away mentality.
Although, only a kid when it was happening, I also might add that going downtown on a regular basis as a child gave me a front row seat to the urban renewal of the 1970s as I watched history being destroyed and the thought to save part of it now I think it is very important.
So I hope most of Sioux Steel is saved. The factory part on the northern side of the overall structure is an example of an iconic early 20th century light factory building, which could be a classic model for a HO train set if it was set to scale; and perhaps it can be saved as some type of open air or door market.
I realize that change at times is good (not always, I am sorry, it isn’t) and nothing is forever, but there is a reason that the cobblestones are still on 6th Street. So lets be careful as we change the area around Sioux Steel in an attempt to change Sioux Falls for the good.
It seems like privateers have plans here. They’ll be thwarted by city pressure (zoning and whatnot). Fools, you have to be an insider like (rhymes with Freud) before you can do anything here. Most contractors and developers know better. They must be from out of state. This city would be far more developed were it not for city corruption and the 2 developer cartel.
Very heartfelt offering by VSG.
But, about the theft of office candy – in modern times I imagine this sort of activity might bring Angela Kennecke to the front for a feature expose’. An Eye on KELOland feature with hidden camera evidence, “Who’s Cleaning Your Office”.