Time-lapse video offers powerful look at record-breaking construction project

This paid piece is sponsored by Lloyd Construction.

It took more than three years to transform 7 acres of downtown skyline, but now you can watch it take shape in 60 seconds:

“Now that the dust has settled and everyone has the chance to breathe a little bit, it’s really an accomplishment we’re all proud of,” said Justin Pittmann, who served as project executive for The Steel District.

While Lloyd Cos. was the developer of the project, trusted by the Rysdon family to fulfill its vision for the downtown property adjacent to Falls Park, Lloyd Construction served as its general contractor.

It was the largest ever undertaking for Lloyd Construction, which last year handled more than $300 million  in building activity, both for properties Lloyd owns or developed, as well as a wide range of third-party clients.

“There are a lot of people who are responding with shock and awe that something like The Steel District exists in Sioux Falls, and some of them don’t really know that it was built by us, locally,” Pittmann said. “Sometimes, people will even ask who built it, not realizing it was us.”

For Lloyd Construction, the project represents years of pre-construction work and then ongoing management of the site and its multiple building projects once the groundbreaking arrived.

That was in the fall of 2021, and from there Pittmann oversaw a massive work area with a huge variety of activity underway at any given time.

“At one point, we had seven cranes on the site, so it was a lot of orchestrating timing — when materials would be arriving, digging for utilities was a challenge, and then making sure we were communicating across our teams,” he said.

“We had multiple large buildings going on at once, plus the adjacent work at the River Greenway and Jacobson Plaza, and at various times there would be hundreds of people working on-site throughout the day, so trying to keep the area clean and safe was huge.”

Safety was paramount, as it is across Lloyd Construction. The safety director from Lloyd moved her office into a job trailer with the rest of the team.

“There were a number of elements to this project that were unique not just to us but to the Sioux Falls area,” Pittmann said.

Work began with trucking an estimated 66,500 tons of dirt to the Sioux Falls Regional Landfill to address contamination, “and we had an additional inspector on-site the entire time we were doing earthwork and dealing with that,” he continued.

From there, the parking ramp building and the mixed-use office tower and restaurant building started construction.

The office tower involved using ultrahigh-performance concrete, produced by Gage Brothers with engineering expertise from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

“The technology is used over there to build some of their massive buildings, and they brought us a proposal we determined would work here,” Pittmann said. “To not have any interior columns in a 20,000-square-foot floor is not heard of in an office building.”

The Canopy by Hilton became the last of the three buildings to begin construction and opened for guests late last year. Along with the apartments, the building used a load-bearing steel stud system that also was a new construction technique for Lloyd.

In all, the $250 million project involved about 850,000 square feet of building.

Additionally, Lloyd Construction completed multiple build-outs for tenants, including the two-story Lloyd Cos. corporate office, which became the first to open at The Steel District in September 2023.

“At that point, we began managing continuing to work on the development while other people were coming in and out to work downtown,” Pittmann said. “But it was rewarding to be able to build our own office and watch our colleagues begin to enjoy working from there.”

The team also built out several smaller offices within the building, as well as the 125 apartments at the adjacent District Lofts.

“We worked on several retail spaces, too, including Brioux Falls inside the office tower, the retail stores Alcove and Pasque Boutique on the ground floor of the parking ramp’s building, and we’re currently working in that same building to finish Jack Rose Social Club so it can open this summer,” Pittmann said.

Lloyd Construction took away plenty of valuable experience from its largest project ever, he added — including a sense of pride in the final product.

“We appreciate the history of the site and the opportunity to work with Sioux Steel in partnership,” Pittmann said. “It was an honor to bring their vision to life.”