Project Prison Reset Task Force hears about Mitchell as potential prison site

Yahoo

30-04-2025

Apr. 29—SPRINGFIELD, S.D. — South Dakota is considering building a new prison. One question is where to put it.
Could Mitchell be the answer to that question?
That was the topic Tuesday afternoon in Springfield, where the Project Prison Reset Task Force met to discuss a number of potential candidate sites, including Mitchell, for a prison that was at one time set to be constructed in Lincoln County before public pushback and legislative funding issues derailed the project.
A recent proposal to build a new state prison in Lincoln County faced significant setbacks and was ultimately put on hold, with the state moving on to exploring alternative sites. Funding for the project was rejected by the South Dakota House of Representatives in February 2025. Despite spending or obligating nearly $51 million on the Lincoln County site, the state is now re-evaluating potential locations. A working group, known as Project Prison Reset, was formed by Rhoden to determine the best path forward for a new prison.
"We've received the message that the current prison plan does not have buy-in this legislative session. We've also heard agreement from pretty much everyone that we need a new prison," Rhoden said in a statement in February. "This working group is our 'reset' button. Everything that came before is in the rearview mirror. From now on, we're looking forward."
The task force has been meeting every four weeks since April with the design of answering three main questions: whether the state needs a new prison, how big it should be and where it should go.
Mike Lauritsen, CEO of the Mitchell Area Development Corporation, wrote in his cover letter for the site information request that Mitchell is ideally located to provide high accessibility for a facility such as a prison.
"Located at the intersection of Interstate 90 and State Highway 37, Mitchell is within 35 miles of U.S. Highway 81 and 22 miles to Highway 281 and 70 miles from Interstate 29," Lauritsen wrote in his cover letter for the information request. "Market access is further extended by access to two rail lines and Mitchell's world-class communications technology, including fiber-to-the-premises broadband and gigabit speeds."
Information provided on the potential Mitchell location indicates the James River Farms property as a candidate site.
The property, which is located in southeast Mitchell, has approximately 160 acres available for development with additional property adjacent for future development. The property is specifically located east of Highway 37, south of Spruce Street. This would place the property directly west of the city treatment plants and sewer lagoons.
The property is a mile from State Highway 37, a main two-lane highway, and is less than three miles from Interstate 90 exit 332.
The land is currently zoned as agriculture and would need a conditional use permit from the county until rezoned. The property would be served by city of Mitchell water and sewer, but extension of the city services would be required for the development in some areas. The estimated cost of the land comes in at $18,000 per acre, or about $2.8 million.
Earlier this month, the Mitchell City Council approved a purchase agreement for the property to purchase the 160-acre parcel of land west of the Mitchell Regional Landfill for $3.48 million. The intention of the purchase was for the city to be able to eventually expand the nearby Mitchell Regional Landfill.
Ryan Brunner, senior policy advisor and director of legislative relations for Rhoden's office, who gave a rundown of the potential sites submitted to the task force, said the Mitchell site had some positive aspects, including a clear price listed.
"Mitchell has a site. They have a price. Some of these sites do not have a price on them. They have a listing of all of the utilities and some of that information," Brunner told the task force. "Some sites like Mitchell already have a price out there, (in this case) $18,000 per acre."
Rep. Jack Kolbeck, a member of the task force, said he would like to hear more about what locals at the candidate sites think of the proposed facility. He noted that he had received multiple calls from members of the public and the feedback he had gotten about the proposed Mitchell site was generally negative.
That feedback should be taken into consideration, he said.
"I think I'll go back to one of the original comments made about the development areas around where they have proposed a site, and I'll just use Mitchell and Grant (County) as two of them that I have received phone calls and emails on from people that live around those areas. Some are positive," Kolbeck said. "Most around the Mitchell area are not. I'm just saying that I think that that should be directed back to those people."
The Mitchell site has sewer, electricity, water, natural gas and fiber optic internet and an estimated cost lower than some other candidate sites. Comparatively, the former CitiBank site in Sioux Falls has similar amenities but a cost that comes in at around $33.8 million. The Worthing site also has similar amenities but comes in at an estimated cost of $14.3 million. Those sites come in at around 69 acres and 110 developable acres, respectively, though the CitiBank site sports 300,000 square feet of existing building space whereas the Mitchell and Worthing sites have none.
Property in Huron, listed at 127 acres, also has comparable resources but a price that's listed as negotiable.
Kolbeck also said it wasn't clear to him if it was or was not a good idea to build a prison next to an interstate. He asked if that were the case, should the task force remove any candidate sites based on that type of concern? Rep. Greg Jamison also asked if it was appropriate to be discussing potential site locations when three major questions the group was tasked with answering — if a new prison is needed, how big should it be and finally, where should it go?
Lt. Gov. Tony Venhuizen, who is the chair of the task force, said in-depth discussion on those factors would be more appropriate for the next meeting of the task force, which would be held after a consultant report addressing those questions is released to task force members.
That should give them more information to go on, he said.
"We are not making a decision at this point. We're just asking questions to make sure we understand," Venhuizen said. "But the consultant report, which addresses the first two questions that you've mentioned, will be available prior to our next meeting, which is June 3, and I agree with you that we need to talk about those first two questions and then return to these locations and see where that fits into these sites. So I do think you have the sequence correct. So this is by no means the last time we'll be talking about these."
The task force later ended up unanimously approving a motion made by Marty Jackley, attorney general for South Dakota and a member of the task force, that stated that the task force believed that the state penitentiary needs to be replaced without giving any specifics to the needed size or location of any replacement facility.
Sites being explored along with Mitchell, Huron, CitiBank and Worthing include Aberdeen, Grant Count and six other Sioux Falls area locations, as well as the previously considered site in Lincoln County. The task force did not select a site or finalist locations, though they expect that may occur at their next meeting.
Other input heard by the task force Tuesday included presentations on the behavioral health and Life Mentoring programs at Mike Durfee State Prison, which is located in Springfield, along with a presentation on the Governor's House program, the product of which is built at the prison.
Final recommendations made by the working group will be presented at a special legislative session on July 22. The next scheduled meetings for the task force include June 3 in Pierre and July 8 in Sioux Falls.