01-05-2025
At least 14 possibilities: Where new SD prison might go
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — Project Prison Reset voted in total agreement Tuesday that the current South Dakota State Penitentiary, located in Sioux Falls, which predates the state itself, should be replaced. The group, which came together after the South Dakota state legislature failed to appropriate money to build a new men's prison, is now examining how big a new facility should be and where it should go.
Different submissions have come in to the governor's office from communities in eastern South Dakota. Beyond the Sioux Falls area, there's one section of land in Huron, two outside the city limits of Aberdeen that are about nine miles apart from each other, one outside Mitchell and another in and next to Big Stone City.
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In the Sioux Falls area, there are nine possibilities; some are within the city limits, and others are close to Sioux Falls or not far from Canton or Worthing. Two are within the city limits of Sioux Falls: one to the immediate southwest of the intersection of Interstates 29 and 90 and another in the northern part of the city. Three are nearly within Sioux Falls city limits: one at the intersection of 259th Street and Marion Road, another south of Interstate 90 to the west of the city and a third similarly just outside city limits.
Two are in the Worthing, S.D. area: one on Highway 18 and another slightly farther south. Another location is in the immediately vicinity of Canton, S.D.
The location between Harrisburg, S.D. and Canton, where the state had previously focused on putting a facility, remains a possibility as well. There has been vocal and organized opposition to placing a prison in this location, and now, the perspectives of other communities are weighing on the minds of the task force as they consider submissions.
'Could you just have them in some way put in, what do the neighbors think of it?' Minnehaha County Sheriff and task force member Mike Milstead said Tuesday during Project Prison Reset's meeting in Springfield, S.D.
'I think it would be very advantageous to all of us if there was some feedback back from the locations from the people that lived around that if that's possible,' Republican lawmaker and task force member Jack Kolbeck of Sioux Falls said at Tuesday's meeting.
Project Prison Reset's task force will meet again in early June. And it's a safe bet that between now and then, they'll learn what people in the different communities with proposed locations have to say.
'I would certainly encourage them to report back on what the neighbors said when they knocked on the doors going down the line of all the new houses of what they thought about the prison going in,' Milstead said.
'We put out this list yesterday,' Lt. Gov. Tony Venhuizen, who is chairing Project Prison Reset, said in response Tuesday. 'I'm guessing in fairly short order we'll know what the neighbors think.'
The state has summarized submissions on its Boards and Commissions website.
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