People think the ‘image’ problem we have Downtown is from the homeless and panhandlers, when it’s really something we can’t see! The stench from the packing plant and the train whistles.
Last week while riding through the Cherapa and Sioux Steel District projects at night I was astonished by how incredibly bad it smelled as I stood in front of the Northside condos at Cherapa facing 6th street which are less then a mile from the packing plant. I can’t image having a patio on the Northside of that building and having to smell that every night and morning?
“Hey babe! Fire up the Keurig, I’m going to have a cup of coffee on our new patio. What flavor would you like dear? Pork Belly Cafe’ or Hot Dog Slurry?”
Bet it would go good with a maple bacon topped donut.
That was one of the biggest issues with the Railroad Redevelopment project, it never did anything to mitigate two of the biggest problems we have with redeveloping downtown; train traffic (whistles) and the stench from the manure factory.
Of all the projects that the former mayor screwed up, this was colossal. We had millions of Federal dollars to transform DTSF and we did nothing but hand over a gigantic check to Warren Buffet. I think we should have moved the train switching yard to the Arena/EC site and built the EC and new convention center where the current Cherapa II is located, in fact, the developer was banking on it.
Joe Kirby writes a great article about the lack of transparency surrounding the new prison. I have purposely tried not to write about it, because the lack of transparency is predictable with these folks and is beginning to sound like a broken record that has been playing in Pierre for over 50 years of one party rule.
The old prison will likely remain. A state legislator recently mentioned on the TDS podcast that the state just spent $6 million on the Jameson Annex medical facilities, which tells her that the facility will continue to be used for low security inmates after the new prison opens.
What about Smithfields? I think the Feds and the State and even the city had an opportunity here to pressure the closure of the facility for good during the pandemic. But my understanding of the situation was the Feds had to keep it open due to critical infrastructure (food production) even though a large percentage of pork produced at the facility likely goes to China (you know, because they like own the place.)
Let’s just say that bulldozing the current pen, Smithfields and every fricking train crossing in DTSF would be a very heavy lift considering two of the problems are controlled by Federal easements, etc. You would think having the 3rd most powerful person in the Senate being from our state we could get some movement on at least the train issue?
This town passes up opportunities like this quite consistently. Both Mayors Hanson and Munson toyed with a new east/west route thru the country club properties and were shot down. I still think you could arrange a 5 lane thoroughfare thru the center of the courses without disrupting most of the property. The amount of traffic that would be diverted would be monumental and would cut a lot of commutes in half mileage wise.
I’m still not sure where Veteran’s Parkway goes? I joked this summer when I had to drive on it going to Brandon that they replaced Huset’s Speedway with the Veteran’s Speedway.
Maybe there is a less valuable and less controversial location available. Or maybe this Lincoln County site is the best one available. It’s hard to know without more transparency.
And Kirby points out the crux of our problems, it’s not ugly old prisons and a stinky noisy downtown that is hampering development, it’s government’s lack of sunshine.
And when it comes to open government, as the panhandler’s sign says, ‘Anything Helps!’