Levitt at the Falls to break ground on major expansion

Levitt at the Falls is about to end a record-breaking season with a big expansion.

The organization will break ground for the additions 4:30 p.m. Thursday on the southwest corner of the Levitt Shell at Fifth Street and Phillips Avenue.

“It’s been a great year,” said Nancy Halverson, president and CEO of Levitt at the Falls. “It has been an amazing summer.”

Photos by Libby Breckon, Levitt at the Falls

And the year is about to get better. A $5.8 million donor-funded campaign will allow Levitt at the Falls to add about 6,000 square feet of interior space.

This season has escaped any rainouts so far and has drawn about 113,500 people, on pace for 120,000 by the end of this final weekend.

“That’s the largest by far we’ve ever had,” Halverson said.

The expansion was led off by a $2.25 million seed gift from Dick and Kathy Sweetman, which will name the Sweetman Atrium on the west side of the venue.

A $1 million donation from Denny Sanford will create the T. Denny Sanford Hospitality Center, featuring three artist dressing rooms with restrooms, an expanded green room with a kitchen, ground-level storage and a media studio for video production.

The difference will be “huge” for operations, Halverson said. “Right now, there’s two dressing rooms and one small green room that can comfortably fit a band of four or five. That’s the space where they get off the bus when they arrive, cool off and have a beverage before we get them on stage for sound check. They’re in there eating dinner on their laps getting ready for the concert.”

Typically, a staff of 15 supports the show, from those traveling with the artist to Levitt’s production team and staff from the Sioux Falls Parks & Recreation Department.

“We are all working out of an electrical closet, so that gives you a sense of it,” Halverson said. “Once this is all finished, the production team will have a space they can work out of, our offices will be on-site, so everyone is going to have room to do what they need to do without being on top of each other.”

This past weekend with the All My Relatives festival, for instance, 150 artists came through the space, at times using nearby Startup Sioux Falls as a dressing room. The Levitt team currently uses an older downtown building for office space that requires hauling equipment up and down stairs to take to off-site venues used for private concerts, donor events and camps.

“It’s going to be wonderful to basically have all that activity under one roof,” Halverson said.

Inside the Sweetman Atrium, the 4,000-square-foot Dakota State University Community Room will host indoor music performances, community events, donor celebrations and summer youth camps in partnership with DSU. The Atrium will house six new staff offices, a production area and programming equipment storage.

A gift from John and Jeanelle Lust will provide a second, smaller outdoor stage, providing greater flexibility with the addition.

“Currently, it is the loading dock, but we’re refinishing it so the programming space will have doors that lead right out to it, we’ll have sun shades we can put on so it becomes an indoor-outdoor event space,” Halverson said. “We’ve used that back stage as a second stage before, and it worked really well with big festivals, so now we’ll finish it off so it feels like a venue of its own.”

The expansion will allow Levitt to think differently about how it offers programming in the off-season, she added.

That could include bringing in groups of kids for programs and leveraging the relationship with DSU to do a camp about how technology and music intersect. The inside space can accommodate about 250 patrons in a black box-style venue with a flat floor that could involve bringing in a small stage, or it could fit about 500 in an indoor-outdoor setup.

“I think it will extend the season, but it will look different,” Halverson said.

“Right now, we curate the season for the main stage, which is really meant for bands that have a big sound that can fill a big outdoor space. What I love about the indoor space is I can look at more intimate bands with sound that doesn’t translate in a big outdoor amphitheater, so it gives more opportunities to hear great music. We’ve worked hard to make the acoustics strong, so when we do use it for music, it sounds great.”

The new addition is unique among the nation’s seven full-size Levitt venues. Sioux Falls is the smallest outdoor space but generates the biggest attendance.

The goal is to finish the dressing rooms and green rooms by May 15, 2026, so they’re ready for artists next season and then wrap up the west side and public programming space throughout the summer.

“I’m just so filled with gratitude for our city and their understanding and appreciation of the arts and what it can mean for building community,” Halverson said. “The ongoing support of the community has been unbelievable.”