June 16, 2025

This piece is sponsored by Sioux Metro Growth Alliance.

Asphalt production has started at L.G. Everist’s newest facility just outside Harrisburg — the latest phase of a 60-acre development that also includes a ready-mix plant and recycling yard.

“It’s nice to have a big-enough footprint to do all the things that we need to do,” president and CEO Rob Everist said.

“It doubles our existing capacity in the Sioux Falls metro area, and it’s a very clean, very safe site. It’s laid out so well it doesn’t ever seem that busy even though we’re having a strong year.”

The development, called Nine Mile Park, is staffed by about three dozen people.

The ready-mix plant — the company’s largest — began operations last fall, while the asphalt plant came online in May.

“It’s now a full-fledged ready-mix and hot mix asphalt facility,” Everist said.

“And then we’ve got recycled materials — road millings and crushed concrete in the back — so it’s a 60-acre, all-weather site that can produce all sorts of construction materials.”

The operation is along the Interstate 29 exit just outside of Harrisburg on the southeast corner of the interchange. It’s intentionally landscaped and hard-surfaced to create an attractive setting.

“As you drive by, you look at it and say it doesn’t look like a typical construction yard,” Everist said. “We did that on purpose. We invested more to make it look nice not only to attract employees but to show the county and the community we’re here to be good neighbors.”

The plants are state of the art, with technology that allows the team to monitor trucks and prepare their required loads in real time to maximize efficiency.

Every truck goes through a wash before it leaves the plant to head to a job site.

The location is key to supporting regional growth. It complements a plant on Rice Street in northeast Sioux Falls and replaces a smaller plant nearby.

“So we’re on opposite sides of the Sioux Falls area now, right off the interstate, and we have a lot of access and flexibility and redundancy as far as how we’re delivering throughout the city,” Everist said. “Sioux Falls, there’s a lot of infrastructure work right now between Veterans Parkway, area bridge construction and the overall road construction season. Private construction has tapered off some, especially on the apartment side, but we’re happy and busy every day.”

L.G. Everist now has about 440 employees from its downtown Sioux Falls headquarters to about two dozen locations of various sizes throughout the Upper Midwest and in the Denver metro area down to Colorado Springs.

The Harrisburg-area site includes multiple innovative construction methods too.

Shredded asphalt shingles were used in the base, which is made entirely of recycled material. Some of the paving on-site involves a 100 percent quartzite product with no natural sand and gravel. Plus, the site is all self-contained and has its own storm sewer system, with all the surface water drained into ponds for uses on-site.

“We think it’s pretty cool and a bit of green effort,” Everist said.

“And then with our on-site recycling yard, we’re bringing in rubble asphalt or concrete, crushing it down and resizing it to reuse and incorporate back into the next project.”

L.G. Everist owns a total of 140 acres in the area, with some of it set aside as future commercial land.

“It’s being farmed right now for crops, and when the interchange gets redone, we will start looking at development,” Everist said. “It will either be a build-to-suit or we’ll sell, but we own both sides of the intersection on the east side of the highway.”

L.G. Everist’s investment in the area is key to regional growth, said Tyler Tordsen, president and CEO of Sioux Metro Growth Alliance.

“Access to construction materials is a critical element to supporting economic activity,” he said. “L.G. Everist has done a fantastic job creating a best-in-class industrial site that complements the area and will help support workforce development at the same time.”

L.G. Everist will host a ribbon-cutting and two-hour open house on Thursday, June 19, beginning at 11:30 a.m.