March 11, 2019

The national beauty retailer Ulta Beauty is expanding to the east side of Sioux Falls with a new store at Dawley Farm Village.

The store is leasing space in a new retail building starting construction soon north of PetSmart.

Ulta, which has a store at the Empire East retail center on Louise Avenue, will occupy about 10,000 square feet of space in the new 25,000-square-foot Dawley space dubbed the Dawley Apex because it’s at the north end of the retail center.

The project will include a 3,200-square foot end-cap space north of Ulta, plus five additional small-shop spaces ranging from 1,600 to 3,800 square feet.

The small-shop spaces will face north, across the street from First Bank & Trust and Buffalo Wild Wings.

“The existing smaller retail space has generally been pretty leased up at Dawley. This project will provide more options for small retail and food tenants,” said Ryan Tysdal of Van Buskirk Cos., the listing agent on Dawley Apex.

He estimates the project took about two years to come to fruition and involved collaboration with Raquel Blount of Lloyd Cos., the developer and property manager for Dawley Farm Village.

“Raquel assisted in bringing Ulta to our doorstep,” Tysdal said.  “Typically, Raquel and I are on opposite sides of deals. It was fun to get to be on the same side for once. She was pivotal in this deal coming together.”

Ulta brings a welcome new shopping destination for the development, said Blount, who also represents leasing and land sales for the Dawley development.

“This is a highly sought-after retailer, and we’ve been working with them for several years,” she said. “Sioux Falls has already shown it loves Ulta, and we know the Dawley shopper is going to love the convenience of shopping there closer to home.”

Bringing in retailers that cater to female shoppers helps bring in more specialty retail, she added.

“When you have services and shops that appeal to a similar shopper, they feed off each other. We’re very excited to see this deal come together.”

The Dawley Apex project will wrap up later this year about the same time as the planned connection of Veterans Parkway, or South Dakota Highway 100, to Interstate 90.

“It really makes east-side shopping convenient for many more residents of the surrounding area,” Tysdal said.

“Imagine getting from Luverne, Minn., to the east-side Target in just 20 minutes. That’s huge.”

Highway 100 continues to spur development on the east side, Tysdal said, adding that there are several residential and commercial deals in the works along the corridor.

But, like the Ulta deal, they take time.

“National retail deals of this nature are incredibly complex and take months to negotiate,” Tysdal said. “It takes a lot of persistence, teamwork and compromise from all parties to get these deals across the finish line.”