Jan. 2, 2022

Call it my first executive decision for 2022: Deciding not to go the formulaic route and title this column something like “Top 10 Themes for 2022” so that I can instead just think through and write what I think will truly emerge as the themes in business for the year ahead.

Will there be eight, nine, 11? I suppose we’ll find out together. 

Also, thank you to Paul Schiller for the beautiful photo he allowed me to use!

Billion-dollar year, 2.0

I’ll start with a sort of, but not really, bold prediction: In 2022, Sioux Falls once again will hit $1 billion in building permit valuation.

I’m stopping short of saying this will become the norm, but based on the projects I already know are starting and not yet permitted, as well as those I think will permit at least partially in 2022, I can add up big numbers and approach $1 billion fairly easily.

So building activity and development will continue to be prominent themes this year. Watch for new neighborhoods to start on the far east and west sides and in communities across the metro area.

There will be cranes in the core of our city all year as both major downtown projects will have yearlong construction before we begin seeing openings in 2023 and 2024.

From what I’m hearing, CJ Foods will begin construction of its $500 million Asian food production facility this year, although I want an invite to a groundbreaking before I lock that in.

And then there are the projects I’m not sure we’ve heard about yet …

Cyber takes center stage

I wouldn’t say it has reached the mainstream yet, but those who follow South Dakota politics likely caught that Gov. Kristi Noem alluded to a budget request last month coming to the state Legislature for a cybersecurity training center in Sioux Falls.

This is not a new area of focus in state or local economic development, but expect to see cyber-related education and job growth become more of an emphasis this year. It makes a lot of sense given the impressive pipeline of graduates at Dakota State University and its numerous public and private sector relationships. I’d love to see more of those graduates remain in this area and others return after having worked elsewhere.

Health care gets back to building

It has been awhile since we told you about major construction projects from our health systems, and I don’t think we’ll be waiting much longer.

Expect to see some details from Sanford Health about its approach to evolving the main Sanford USD Medical Center campus and its previously announced east-side clinic projects and virtual hospital.

Avera Health still has plenty of land for building at 69th Street and Louise Avenue, so I don’t think some of that will sit idle much longer.

And now that we know LifeScape won’t be building at the USD Discovery District, I expect 2022 might be the year we hear about a new plan for that organization’s evolving needs.

A pandemic becomes an endemic

Maybe it’s more a plea than a prediction: Can this please become the year that we move COVID-19 from a disruptive pandemic to a more livable endemic?

It seems like we’re moving in that direction, though I never would have thought one year ago that I would have just ordered a fresh supply of disposable masks either.

The equally big theme here though is what this all means from a community standpoint. Does our public health-related in-migration continue? How will the dramatic shift to work-from-home impact people’s lifestyle decisions going forward? Does our population continue its historic increase or settle back to its traditionally steady one?

My prediction is that we’ll continue to see above-average population growth, though not the same surge as 2020 and 2021 brought. Our historically high apartment construction will continue to help handle the demand, and we’ll start to see minor improvement in the single-family market thanks mostly to new construction and at least a few former out-of-state residents I expect might move on if the forecast for January holds.

Downtown’s draw broadens

One theme I’ll be watching for downtown Sioux Falls this year involves interest from those who have not traditionally done much or any business in our market. We’ve already seen it in Josh Thoma, Twin Cities restaurateur, who is bringing three restaurants to the Steel District.

And I’m hearing about others on the corporate, retail and development side who are moving toward locations or projects downtown.

It’s a positive validation of the investment that has happened here. But it’s a reminder, too, to continue cultivating a supportive environment for local small-business owners, who can uniquely contribute to the downtown environment.

I’m also excited to see what vision comes from the new version of the long-range downtown plan, too, which likely will expand what we think of as downtown’s traditional boundaries, and to see another few blocks of Phillips Avenue become more pedestrian-oriented and a greater destination unto themselves.

The Amazon effect

Sometime in the first quarter, I hope we’ll be covering Amazon beginning operations out of its new fulfillment center in Sioux Falls. We’ve yet to really see the extent to which its minimum wage and benefits package will affect the market, but I will venture that it might not be as pronounced as some might think.

However, there definitely is a bigger Amazon effect that could become a theme for the year ahead and beyond – the trend toward companies building fulfillment centers, requiring more warehouse space and offering same-day or next-day delivery. We saw a little of this already with Hy-Vee’s announcement to turn a grocery store into a fulfillment center, and we’ve seen FedEx expand in the market with a huge new center at Foundation Park.

Plenty of others are considering the need for more space, from inside and outside the market as we reported recently, so stay tuned in 2022 as the city combats historically limited industrial inventory and warehouse space.

Retail’s resurgence

It has been incredible to see the across-the-board increases in retail sales this year, from the nationals to the locally owned. I don’t know if this can be duplicated in 2022, but it’s interesting to think about all the people out there who have received pay increases in the past year. While, sadly, many consumers could still struggle to keep up with across-the-board cost-of-living increases, others will turn that pay increase into additional disposable income, which could be good news for retailers.

I’ll write more about this soon, but practically every national retailer you can think of is in expansion mode. So look for many more announcements as they see the performance and growth prospects of the Sioux Falls market. That is if they think they can hire. Which leads me to …

Workforce, workforce, workforce

Think you’re sick of hearing about it? So are employers trying to manage through persistently challenging environments for hiring and retaining people.

But the state of our workforce will continue to be a theme not just this year but for the foreseeable future. This isn’t new, but some of the forces around it are being lifted up to a greater extent: the availability and affordability of child care and housing, the influence of the gig economy and the need to upskill and retrain.

The burnout effect

This might go in tandem with a few of the above themes, but increasingly I am seeing many of us teetering on the edge of burnout, if not there already.

I’ve concluded some of this is a definite ripple effect of the building and population boom. It’s not an exaggeration to say that anyone who works in these areas has experienced incredibly demanding years. Whether you work in building construction and related trades, commercial real estate, property management, lending – I could go on and on – you have likely been busier than you’ve ever been and at times struggling to keep up.

I see it in my own world too. There has never been so much business news to try to capture and report. I shared with one source the other day the shameful statistic that I had more than 4,700 emails in my inbox that I either needed to file, reply to, read or delete. It never has been close to that bad. Then, he sent me a screenshot that showed he had more than 26,000.

And I know this is happening in other industries too. I wish I had an easy answer, but I do think 2022 needs to be the year we each try to manage burnout in whatever ways we can.

The entrepreneurship surge

We’re wrapping up a survey – see more below – asking our business community about work, life and work-life balance heading into 2022, and while I don’t want to give too much away, I was shocked by the number who are telling us they’re considering becoming business owners.

That’s really exciting to me as I approach my five-year anniversary as an entrepreneur. But it also means we as a community have to make sure we’re continuing to offer the resources necessary to help these startups have their best shot at success. We’ve already seen a huge increase in program participation through Startup Sioux Falls, which has a lot more planned for this year, and it appears to be needed more than ever.

Want to tell me your own thoughts? Take our anonymous work-life survey here. We’ll leave it up until Friday and then begin bringing you results.

And hey, in counting up my themes, I realize there were 10 after all. So top 10 it is.

Happy 2022! And thank you for your unbelievable support of my business, Align Content Studio, and its brands: SiouxFalls.Business, Pigeon 605, 605 Made and whatever I think up next. It’s an honor to bring you the news of this incredible community.

On heels of billion-dollar year, Sioux Falls looks to 2022 as ‘another really strong year’