It’s set to be a milestone year for road construction in the Sioux Falls area.
“2025 is a year of transformational transportation projects,” city engineer Andy Berg said.
The highway and street budget is $70 million for the year, prioritized based on utility conditions, resident feedback and a citywide pavement survey.
The focus is on “preservation – keeping our streets in good shape – rehabilitation, freshening up some of those streets, expansion, adding growing capacity and reconstruction, in addition to improving street conditions and traffic flow,” Berg said.
“We also do those traffic upgrades and adjust timing where needed and work on accessibility improvements for pedestrians and bicyclists as well.”
Most of the major road projects starting this spring won’t be finished until sometime next year.
Multiple massive expansions along the Veterans Parkway corridor and out to the future 85th Street interchange will begin in 2025 but not open until 2026 or beyond.
The state’s future largest intersection is among them. The convergence of Veterans and Arrowhead parkways will result in nine lanes in one direction and 10 in another.
“Arrowhead Parkway is one of the key gateways into Sioux Falls from the east, but it’s also where most of our growth and development’s currently happening,” said Mark Cotter, director of public works.
“And just to make sure we really built it for the future, we also built with pedestrian tunnels incorporated on three legs, so you can make some way around the entire intersection underground as opposed to trying to do it all at the surface.”
To the west along Veterans Parkway, the segment between Cliff and Western avenues is open to traffic and provides a glimpse at what the future will hold for the rest of the corridor.
“It’s not meant to be another I-229,” Cotter added. “It’s meant to be a regional corridor that can really support the growth and development of our area and also our daily visitors that come into Sioux Falls.”
This year, work will start from Cliff to Sycamore avenues and take two years, and potentially the segment from Sycamore to 57th Street could start this year too.
“It’s nice when you’re building a new corridor really out somewhat in the country – there’s very little traffic impact,” Cotter said.
Farther west, design work basically is done along with environmental work related to the future 85th Street interchange. The goal is to finish buying adjacent land needed and bid the project later this summer. From there, it’s at least two full years to finish that and surrounding roadwork.
“It’s going to be terrific for not only the state of South Dakota, Lincoln County, the city of Sioux Falls, but also that really strong (adjacent land) ownership group that has been really with us for many, many years to get us to this point,” Cotter said.
Within town, the reconstruction of Interstate 229 and Cliff Avenue already has started, with a targeted completion later in 2026.
That includes Cliff from 38th Street south to Spencer Park. This summer, Cliff will be closed from 38th to I-229 and then reopened once school begins again.
“We got a really good start last year — so you see a temporary bridge has been set,” Cotter said. “They can really hit the ground running.”
Once school is out for summer, an area of Cliff near 41st Street will be closed for utility work before reopening around the start of school.
“You’re going to see a modern single-point interchange built there,” Cotter said.
“We’ll also build pedestrian and bicycle tunnels on the on- and off-ramps. There’s just a lot of traffic that uses it to get down to the bike trail.”
The city also plans to “bend” 41st Street north to connect it with Lincoln High School and create a different intersection.
“We really want to, from a traffic standpoint, separate 41st Street and the interchange,” Cotter said. “That’s what that allows us to do.”
While those are major projects in partnership with the South Dakota Department of Transportation, the city of Sioux Falls also is planning to improve more than 700 blocks of streets this year.
Two major overlays will involve 12th Street from Marion to Ellis roads beginning in May and Rice Street from Cleveland Avenue to Veterans Parkway later in the summer.
“So some really good improvements coming to two really highly traveled roads by the end of this year,” Cotter said.
There’s also a chance, if the budget allows, that construction will move forward later this year on the next segment of Minnesota Avenue to be improved south of Second Street.
At a neighborhood level, there are more than 220 blocks planned for mill and overlay improvements and more than 500 blocks planned for slurry seal improvements.
ADA-related improvements are planned on 41st Street between Westport and Western avenues as well as Minnesota Avenue between 11th and 18th streets that will result in traffic being down to one lane at times.
Watch for weekly Road Report updates on Pigeon605 beginning March 24.
