Community effort begins to create Lincoln Commons on former school site

Desmond Tiah’s flower garden was still taking shape on paper one recent school day, but he was sure of one thing: It would contain rose bushes.

Most likely red roses, the sophomore at Axtell Park School said, along with an as-yet-unchosen blue flower and an ankle-height border with white blossoms.

That garden may never be planted, but Tiah will have his hands in the dirt this spring when Rise Jongeling’s three biology classes travel a couple of blocks east to begin turning a mostly empty plot of ground into a community gathering space.

It is the first step in a multipronged partnership to turn a green space in central Sioux Falls into a neighborhood asset through the cooperation of the Sioux Falls School District, the Cathedral and Pettigrew Heights neighborhoods, the city of Sioux Falls and philanthropic citizens.

For more than a year, the school district has worked with the city’s Parks & Recreation Department and area residents to develop what has been dubbed Lincoln Commons. It is on land west of Grange Avenue and between Eighth and Ninth streets where Lincoln Elementary once stood.

When it is completed in three to five years, the property will include a walking path, pergola, basketball court, play area and several small, themed gardens. It also might have a dog park. The community garden, which has been in existence for several years, will continue in its location at Ninth and Grange.

A steering committee representing all the partners has met to share the needs they see for the land.

“It’s so exciting. We worked really hard, and it’s been a neighborhood effort,” said Lura Roti, who lives in the neighborhood. “We’ve had more than 100 neighbors come out to advocate for Lincoln Commons, and it’s exciting to see it come to fruition.”

Added another neighbor, Bob Trzynka: “It’s an important space to the neighborhood, and it always has been. For it to continue as a public space is a real boon to the neighborhood.”

Roti and Trzynka live in the neighborhood surrounding St. Joseph Cathedral. Along with six other neighbors, they formed a committee in 2022 to help save and preserve the former school property as a green space. That year, there had been conversations about putting a housing development there, but no firm plans were ever brought forward.

In 2023, neighbors gathered to show the potential to host amenities and activities beyond the community garden.

Superintendent Jane Stavem, who is retiring this year from the school district, encouraged expanding the green space’s potential.

“What we’re really looking at is a site plan with some enhancements we’ve all agreed upon,” she said. “The neighborhood really had a voice in what they would like. It’s not developing it into a park. It’s just kind of putting it on hold for the district should we ever need the property while adding some things that enhance the use for the neighborhood until the time comes.”

Walking paths will draw people into the area, while a concrete slab could be used for playing basketball or giving children a safe solid surface where they can ride their bikes or scooters while parents are tending plots in the community garden, Stavem said.

The goal was to look at improving the property without turning it into a park that the city didn’t want or losing land that the school district doesn’t want to give up.

“Yet the neighborhood loves being there, and we understand that,” Stavem said. “Without a lot of big fanfare, we just moved it to the next level, and it worked really well.”

Perch restaurant, which opened in June 2024 in a renovated long-ago neighborhood grocery, has enhanced the neighborhood’s profile and will bring more people into the area, the superintendent said.

Longtime Sioux Falls residents Paul and Mary Ellen Connelly contributed $250,000 toward making Lincoln Commons a reality, and an anonymous donor has pledged $100,000 in matching contributions. People who wish to give additional donations can do so through the Sioux Falls School District..

The Connellys have a history of investing in Sioux Falls’ core neighborhoods, said Mary Kolsrud, its chief philanthropy officer at the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation, which worked with the donors. They attended neighborhood meetings to learn more about what area residents wanted to see at Lincoln Commons.

“Paul and Mary Ellen fund a vast variety of projects, and they have a long history of supporting beautiful spaces and making our core neighborhood better,” Kolsrud said. “The vision is really that the neighborhood has to cross a busy street, so how do we create safe, beautiful spaces for everyone to enjoy. We asked, how do we create something for that community to give it an opportunity to connect with that park and build that park?”

With their donation, the Connellys show other Sioux Falls residents how a personal passion can combine with a public spirit to create an impactful and meaningful change, Kolsrud said.

“It’s not just their generosity with the project but the way they’re building community around this project,” she said. “There are some folks in Sioux Falls who don’t just give, but they inspire others to care and give and get involved. This was a perfect example of that action.”

Paul Connelly moved from Minneapolis to Sioux Falls in 1965 to begin a 40-plus year career with Culligan Water Conditioning. Mary Ellen Connelly grew up in Mount Vernon and attended Colorado State University for several years before moving to Sioux Falls in 1967. They met that summer.

Mary Ellen Connelly owned and operated a plant nursery, Perennial Passion, for several years. Establishing her own nursery was “a labor of love for a consummate gardener,” she said.

While the Connellys have spent most of their marriage living in houses near the Veterans Affairs health center, the health of the city’s core neighborhoods also has been a passion. They learned many years ago through mentors to Paul Connelly like the late Don Davis that gifts to the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation could make an impact.

“It turned out to be one of the best things we’ve ever done,” Paul Connelly said. “We donate money to the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation, and they in turn would invest it for you until you had a specific cause that you wanted to support.”

Lincoln Commons is one of those specific causes, the Connellys said. It ties in with previous gifts to support teachers and for another harbor of greenery, the Mary Jo Wegner Arboretum.

The city parks system also has been one of their passions.

“In Sioux Falls, the parks department has always been really extraordinary,” Paul Connelly said. “We looked forward to supporting them, especially in the core neighborhoods.”

The Connellys have spent more than a year on Lincoln Commons, meeting with Stavem and parks director Don Kearney. As they asked questions and listened to neighbors, they followed the path laid out by the late Tom Kilian, who conducted monthly meetings where he asked people to discuss the things they viewed as beautiful.

“This all started with a seed that Tom Kilian planted 35 years ago,” Mary Ellen Connelly said. “He would ask, what does beauty mean to you, and why is it important? Then we could identify projects we could advocate for. There was no park in the Pettigrew area, and the idea was planted 25 years ago in my head — a park where people didn’t have to cross 10th or 11th or 12th street.”

The project total is estimated at $500,000. Stavem suggested involving the neighborhood in fundraising to expand it from being viewed simply as a school district project, the Connellys said.

Stavem and the school district have been incredible partners during this process, Roti said.

“We are so excited to see the enhancements,” she said.

The neighborhood also is grateful to the Connellys and to the anonymous donor. “Whoever they are and wherever they are, we are so, so grateful,” Roti said.

The Cathedral neighborhood voted to apply for city neighborhood development grants earlier this year and received about $6,000. The money will be used for items such as hoses and stakes for the community garden and 20 Kentucky coffee, Autumn Splendor buckeye, Autumn Gold ginkgo and Heritage oak trees to be planted along Eighth Street. Water bags for the trees also will be purchased.

Volunteers from the neighborhood will plant the trees, followed by a hot dog grill-out, on May 17.

Some of the gardeners who are returning this summer have planted plots of land for almost 20 years, Trzynka said. Those gardens are particularly important since Lincoln Commons sits on the edge of the city’s largest food desert. Almost all the gardeners live within a half-mile of the green space.

Lincoln Commons also will offer educational opportunities for students who attend the high school at Axtell Park and some of the other programs headquartered in that building. The school already has five raised garden beds on its campus off West Avenue, Jongeling said.

Students vote on what will be raised in the raised beds. For example, the “sweet treats” bed will have strawberries and watermelons. The spaghetti bed will include tomatoes and oregano.

“She has such a heart for her students,” Roti said of Jongeling. “She gets so enthusiastic about the projects that will help her students learn. Her students are going to be staking out the individual garden plots, so the math, do the measuring, put in the stakes.”

When Stavem asked Jongeling if she would help, the teacher said she jumped at the chance. “I love plants, I love helping kids,” Jongeling said.

She has taught her biology students about photosynthesis and genetics; now she is focusing on the practical skills of designing a garden. The students are raising vegetables like kale that will be planted in their community garden plot.

Several other garden spaces eventually will be the responsibility of Axtell Park students. Some of the work must wait until the concrete is poured for the pathways, but plans are to have one garden named for the school.

“I want that to be perennials so the kids can come back and say, ‘Hey, I did this,’” Jongeling said. “It’s something that will last.”

A sensory garden will offer fragrant plants like lemongrass, oregano and rosemary. Another garden will be filled with plants designed to offer feed to birds, while another will have flowers that attract butterflies. Jongeling will bring in some of the bees she raises for the pollinator garden. A triangular garden plot will allow Lincoln Commons visitors to walk on all three sides.

The community garden plot will contain pumpkins and other vegetables that can be harvested in the fall. Tiah, who is raising hydroponic kale and spinach, said he plans to visit the garden over the summer, even though he lives elsewhere in Sioux Falls.

“I love plants,” he said. “I have a really green thumb.”

Jongeling said her students are learning more than biology and math.

“They’re learning to be part of a community, about collaboration and working with people,” she said. “Yes, you can have your own ideas, that’s what they’re working on now, but they have to come together and decide.”

When Roti and Trzynka pass by the empty plot now, they imagine how it will look in the future, with folks sitting on benches enjoying the native plants and watching butterflies, children running in play, teenagers challenging each other in basketball and soccer, and people walking to Perch to return with refreshments.

There could be music in the evenings and children’s theater on weekends, they said.

“It will be a living, beathing community space that will be managed by the community, how it’s used, how it’s realized. It’s a dynamic process,” Trzynka said.

Stavem called Lincoln Commons “a great little project. It’s just turned into a really nice project that helped everybody get what they wanted.”

The name Lincoln Commons was chosen for two reasons, Roti said. It honors the former elementary school that served the neighborhood for decades.

“And if you look up the definition of commons, it’s community coming together,” she said. “The community knew they wanted to maintain the public space and keep it. Community has been in every aspect of this land.”