Sioux Falls, SD
We’re the canary in the coal mine with this one. This site has been developed for other uses since we started exploring the idea in 2018, but we’re still grinding the axe on downtown baseball.
America’s pastime hasn’t found much favor in Sioux Falls over the years. The local squad, the Canaries, have struggled to gain traction. Some think it’s the team. Others just don’t like baseball. We think it’s about the experience. Specifically, the stadium.
And actually, we’re less interested in a shiny new stadium and more in a new location. If we could rent a giant crane to lift the existing stadium from its current location in the under-developed north end of town to a new spot downtown, we would. But they don’t make cranes like that. They just make new stadiums.
We first pushed for a downtown stadium in a 2018 op-ed and have helped carry the torch since, exploring new sites and challenging various public and private community leaders to consider the full economic possibilities. If you’re gonna have a baseball club, they should play downtown. That’s what we think, and lots of urban planners would agree.
We’ll keep at it. It might not be downtown baseball’s time now, but like old Yogi would say, it ain’t over ’til it’s over.
