Oct. 19, 2023

Orthopedic Institute officially starts construction this week on its new location near the future 85th Street interchange.

The two-story, 70,000-square-foot building will be part of the Bakker Landing development in Tea, south of 85th Street and west of Interstate 29 – near where the interchange is planned in the next few years.

“The design process has been remarkable,” CEO Lynda Barrie said. “We, for months and months, engaged all our employees. They see it right through the patients’ eyes. Having their input and just watching the excitement and watching them be part of that process … was completely invaluable.”

The building will be a combination of clinic and administrative space, supporting advanced image and procedure capabilities, and outpatient physical and occupational therapy and rehabilitation. There also will be indoor turf to support OI Performance, the organization’s sports training and return-to-play program.

The new facility will relocate OI from its longtime multistory home on the Avera McKennan campus, in a building Avera owns.

The new one was designed to be modern and patient-focused, down to considering the distance a patient would have to walk to go from one area to another, Barrie said.

“I think it’s going to be a really patient-friendly building because that was top of mind for everybody,” she said.

A groundbreaking is scheduled at 4:30 p.m. today.

New York-based HCP Architects is the architect, and New York-based BBL Medical Facilities, which has built other OI projects, is the contractor.

The project represents the first major commercial development directly situated by the future interchange at 85th Street and Interstate 29, which is scheduled for completion in late 2026 or early 2027. 

“Our belief that accessing health care should be easy and convenient was the driving conviction that led us to select this particular property for our future office,” Dr. David Jones Jr., board president and an orthopedic hand surgeon, said in a statement.

“Several years ago when we realized we were outgrowing our current location, we began a process of exploring potential locations to relocate to. As we looked at current and future growth and infrastructure projects, we quickly recognized that this is where we wanted to be – with the ongoing progress on Highway 100 and the coming 85th Street interchange, we recognized that this location will be easy to access from any direction in and around Sioux Falls as well as the surrounding region.”

Employees are excited by the move, Barrie added. OI has 20 physicians and about 250 employees serving Sioux Falls, plus 14 satellite locations in South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa. OI treats patients for relief of joint, bone or muscle pain or injury without requiring a doctor’s referral. Its physicians specialize in complex total joint preservation, reconstruction or replacement procedures, nonsurgical and surgical spine care needs and pain management with non-opioid solutions.

“Before we purchased the land, we had a map with all our employee ZIP codes on it, so it wasn’t upsetting things too much from an employee standpoint to where it would be huge shifts for them,” she said.

The hope is to finish the OI building by late 2024 or early 2025, Barrie said. The goal will be to time a move to minimize downtime.

“We’re not going to phase it,” she said. “It’s going to be: ‘Go.'”