Oct. 12, 2022

This paid piece is sponsored by Sioux Metro Growth Alliance.

If all goes according to plan, by mid-2023 there will be weddings, special events and maybe even small concerts happening just north of Crooks.

“We’re just looking to provide another venue that definitely will cater to weddings,” said Tammy Winter, who is opening Winter-Green Acres with her husband, Ryan. “We will have indoor and outdoor seating, a large overhang patio, and really the whole theme is a more industrial look with open rafters and barn wood, some metal features and some brick walls inside.”

The hope is to begin pre-booking soon. The 10,000-square-foot building will accommodate about 425 people for a sit-down event and includes a liquor license and prep kitchen.

“I’ve always had a passion for entertaining, and we talked about for a good 15 years whether this would be something we wanted to do,” Winter said. “In the beginning, we didn’t think it would be this scale, but as we researched, we realized to be in the game you need that capacity.  We can accommodate indoor and outdoor activities, and in addition to weddings, it can be a venue for corporate or special events or even music festivals. Amazon is right out of our front window, so we’re hoping maybe they’ll knock on our door.”

After living in the community 20 years and raising three kids there, plus running other businesses, the Winters are well-positioned to see the opportunity in Crooks.

In addition to the 6 acres they bought north of town for the event venue, they’re marketing 18 residential lots from 1.5 to 2 acres each.

“We’ve got eight people written down for lots, and we’ve given a couple tours already, so I really think there is a need for this — a small acreage where you can keep your boat or jet ski or snowmobile on your property without having to rent space,” Winter said.

“We’ve had a lot of support from the city in general and the community as they’ve found out what we’re doing. Word of mouth has kept us busy.”

There are plenty of people staying busy in Crooks, which is benefiting from a wave of commercial activity in northwest Sioux Falls driven by Foundation Park and other nearby employment centers.

Van Buskirk Cos. has sold 11 of the first 12 residential lots it initially put on the market for its Heritage Pond development, plus an additional eight in upcoming development phases, leaving 16 on the market. Five houses already are built, and residents are moving in this fall.

“We should have street paving done on phase two and three in a couple of weeks, which will finish the street all the way down to the pond. The pond is filling with water and being enjoyed already, although it will be more accessible next year with construction projects wrapping up around it and the street installed,” said Steve Van Buskirk, president of land development.

“We anticipated Crooks being appealing to residents who want to live close to Sioux Falls but have a small-town lifestyle, which is exactly the comments we have been receiving. Crooks is an exciting community with a new school, easy access to services, an outdoorsy and welcoming community, new roads and great parks. It continues to provide Sioux Falls-area residents with excellent living options.”

Within Heritage Pond, there are two houses built and for sale designed as workforce housing from Van Buskirk Construction and six twin homes coming in the spring. Kim Hefner, who joined Van Buskirk as residential construction operations manager earlier this year, is working on bringing workforce housing to the area to complement the custom homes available and diversify the offerings in the neighborhood.

“Kim presented the Crooks homes on the Fall Parade of Homes and received an excellent response even with the temporary road closure into Crooks,” Van Buskirk said. “Her takeaway from talking to the home shoppers were young people in the area want to stay in their town to raise a family, and others were happy to have slab-on-grade homes, which would allow empty nesters to move in from their farms yet stay in a single-family home.”

On the commercial side of development, Crooks also is experiencing momentum.

“I think it’s exiciting,” said Matt Teller, a business lender at The First National Bank in Sioux Falls who grew up in Crooks. The bank provided the development loan for the commercial park.

“There’s a lot going on in Crooks, and commercial development is something I think the town has been lacking. There’s a new elementary school, there’s housing development, so there’s a lot of growth, and this allows them to finance improving the land to get those lots ready to be sold.”

Several of the lots are under contract already for everything from a dental office to industrial uses, he said.

“We work with a lot of personal and business customers in Crooks, including ag customers, and as a community bank, we want to support the communities in our area, so that drove our desire to be involved,” he said.

Alliance Communications, which has served the community for 65 years, also contributed to developing the commercial park.

“The Crooks Development Corporation came to us awhile back with a plan that already included a lot of demand. In my mind, it was not a matter of ‘if you build it, they will come.’ They were coming, and the development corporation needed to build it,” CEO and general manager Ross Petrik said.

“While Alliance is not a bank, we do like to invest in our communities. We help development groups, day cares and community projects through direct involvement, loans, grants or technical assistance. We have an economic development fund, and the Crooks Development Corporation’s plan fit well within the parameters of that fund. Given the multiple active residential and commercial developments in that town as well as activity around the area, I think there will be more movement in Crooks for a while.”

The momentum both within the community and just outside of it clearly is building, said Jesse Fonkert, president and CEO of Sioux Metro Growth Alliance.

“It’s exciting to see everything from large corporate entities to small-business owners and individuals investing in Crooks,” he said. “This shows what can happen when partnerships form and communities take a positive, proactive growth as surrounding development in the metro area positions them for success.”

For the Winter family, this captures it as well as anything. Their daughter graduated with a high school class of 53 in 2020. Their son, who is a senior, is in a class of nearly 80. And their youngest, a sixth grader, is in a school with four classes of 25 kids.

“That tells the story,” Winter said. “But we’re young, so I’m excited to see the growth. I think our kids deserve that.”