May 13, 2026

The city of Sioux Falls has brought forward a proposed framework to guide arts and culture development for the next decade.

The master plan follows nine months of community involvement, with input from artists, educators, nonprofit and business leaders and neighborhood voices.

“Over the past decade, arts and culture have become an increasingly important component of our city identity, our economy and our quality of life,” said Jennifer Hoesing, chair of the Sioux Falls Arts Commission.

“As Sioux Falls continues to grow, this plan provides an opportunity to take a more intentional and coordinated approach.”

The plan is intended to be “an active, collaborative road map” with actionable strategies and implementation recommendations, she added.

“This is about the creative economy, said Alex Keen, managing principal at Keen Independent Research, which helped facilitate the master plan.

“It’s not just about arts and culture as entertainment or as social benefit, which it is, but it’s also ensuring you have a robust economy in Sioux Falls, and arts and culture is a huge part of that.”

Extensive input sessions along with a survey led to a sense of overall sentiment of the importance of arts and culture in Sioux Falls.

“People overwhelmingly agree that arts and culture add an appeal to Sioux Falls,” Keen said. “If Sioux Falls wants to be a destination for arts and culture, there continues to be even more work to do.”

A follow-up survey would be a way to assess the effectiveness of the new plan, he added.

“The goal would be to increase these numbers,” he said.

A map shows areas where Sioux Falls has activated art and culture citywide, as well as creative businesses.

“I think it’s great to see they’re throughout the entire city,” Keen said. “This is a major driver of your economic success is having businesses that are part of creative industries.”

The red pins on the map indicate permanent public art installations.

“Your downtown is so strong with public art; we start to see a drop-off in public art investment in the periphery,” Keen said. “We’d love to see more public art invested over time, particularly in areas coming from the airport into downtown. … You don’t really get the sense of Sioux Falls’ identity from a public art standpoint.”

Overall themes from the research include:

Broaden access and participation

• Goal for broader geographical reach
• Desire for stronger visibility and communication

Develop creative space and infrastructure

• Need for more affordable rehearsal, studio and performance spaces
• Interest in creative incubation spaces

Strengthen coordination and long-term investment

• Opportunity for improved coordination across city departments and partners
• Interest in sustainable funding and partnerships

Increase support for artists and organizations

• Need for support pathways
• Partner with outside organizations and donors for funding
• Benefit all levels, including emerging artists to major cultural institutions

Envision public spaces as cultural spaces

• Community interest in arts integrated into everyday environments
• Desire for entrances to Sioux Falls to reflect the city’s arts and culture strengths

Many comments revolved around funding with a lack of affordable space to create art or present art.

“This is something that’s common,” Keen said. “Oftentimes, rehearsal space is a challenge, or ‘I’m an amazing artist and I need a place to go fire my pottery and I don’t have a place to do that.'”

The plan includes some tactics designed to address the gap, he said.

Sioux Falls also should more broadly promote itself as an arts-focused community, even nationally, Keen added.

“You deserve to be known at that level,” he said. “You’re doing really really well.”

Some of the key strategic priorities include:

Those priorities could involve improving public art across the community, doing larger installation pieces and potentially looking at a regional culture institution as well as creative incubation space.

“We are impressed by Sioux Falls. You have such a strong foundation here,” Keen said. “At your size, you have fundamentally a really strong amount of physical infrastructure related to arts and culture.”

Arts and culture tend to be areas people discover once they’re in Sioux Falls, he added.

“We want to see folks that are making Sioux Falls a destination for arts and culture first,” Keen continued.

There is an opportunity to create a center that would become a bigger draw, he said.

“We don’t know what this is, but you are at a size and capability where you could start to have some conversations about this, ultimately focusing on heads in beds, tourism … how do we get people to come specifically to enjoy a cultural attraction.”

The master plan includes about 100 suggested tactics, including assessing cultural facility use and access, addressing gaps in affordable creative space and exploring a shared maker space.

“This is not a closed door,” Keen said. “There’s a lot of story that still needs to be written to help achieve what the plan is recommending.”

To view the full plan and provide input, click here.

The City Council is scheduled to consider the plan May 19.