While we’re masking up and making the best of it, there’s no doubt that some things are still getting stymied by the novel virus.
Two long-awaited projects around town have just announced that “umm guys, it’s gonna be a little longer than we thought…”
One of these makes us sad. One does not.
The State Theatre has been this close to opening for a few years now. With the monies kicked in from City Hall and Godfather T. Denny, it looked like 2020 was go-time! But alas, the Argus is reporting that it’s been hard to get the crews scheduled to finish up the job and even harder to get a reasonable, responsible event line-up together to make opening day something to celebrate.
Fingers crossed something comes together by Christmas time. Wouldn’t it be great to watch It’s a Wonderful Life on the big screen? These eyes wouldn’t be dry when the light comes back on!
The other delay is on the big Sioux Steel redevelopment project. While we’re all for continued building and a higher residential density downtown, the inexorable ringing of Falls Park with now-trendy glass-and-aluminum condos might not be the best thing for the city long term.
There’s already been a lot of concern about who owns what bit of the park-adjacent land. If you dig in, you’ll find that a lot of it used to be Seney Island – a favorite picnic spot until short-term thinking turned it into a dump. Maybe someone should use this covid-inflicted pause to reconsider what would be the best use of the land for the Sioux Fallsians of 2070?
We’re guessing that fifty years from now, another ten acres of river-front park-land will be looking like a much better investment than an aging office/hotel complex.
But that’s none of our business, right? Or is it…