Huether: 'We've Never Gone This Far'

SIOUX FALLS, SD - Sioux Falls Mayor Mike Huether introduced the events center architectural and engineering team to the city council Monday afternoon.

The city picked two firms to work as a team on this project: Sink Combs Dethlefs from Denver and
Koch Hazard Architects from Sioux Falls. The first job for the team is to look for potential sites at both the Arena location and in downtown Sioux Falls. Mayor Huether says he's pleased the project is moving forward and on schedule.

"We've never gone this far before on this particular topic, even though we've been talking about it for well over 12 years," Huether said.

Huether introduced Don Dethlefs and Jeff Hazard as the two primary architects for the project. Within the first 45 days of signing a contract with the city for the project, the team will select a few sites for a potential events center. It's work Dethlefs, the CEO of Sink Combs Dethlefs, has done before.

"We try to objectively analyze the traffic, parking, all those kind of big issues that really affect the success of an arena long term," Dethlefs said.

It's just the first step in the process of building an events center and Huether hopes to bring the city council and the citizens many more updates as the project progresses.

"We're working dang hard to keep you folks informed, we really are. We're trying to be transparent," Huether said.

The city is in the process of choosing a construction manager for the project, then they'll look for a firm to complete an economic impact analysis of the arena site versus the downtown sites that the architecture firms select. They hope to have all of that done by the middle of April.