Public packs Carnegie for Sioux Falls data center dialogue

Public packs Carnegie for Sioux Falls data center dialogue

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Hundreds of community members packed Carnegie Town Hall in downtown Sioux Falls on Tuesday night for a unique joint meeting between the Sioux Falls City Council and the Lincoln County Commission focused on data centers and public engagement.

The gathering marked the second time in two months that the two governing bodies met, following an Aug. 26 meeting in Canton where a data center moratorium and a ban on non-disclosure agreements both failed.

Presentations and Technical Takeaways

The Tuesday session began with a brief presentation from Dakota State University Chief Technology Officer Dr. Brent Van Aartsen, who discussed how data centers work. He outlined three takeaways for the public, encouraging people to identify the facility model — whether enterprise, co-location, hyperscale or edge — and to examine workloads such as AI.

Bieber added that very few options exist for a data center the size of the Gemini project elsewhere in Sioux Falls, limiting future possibilities to the Benson Road and Interstate 229 area or Foundation Park on the far northwestern edge.

Small-Group Discussions With Officials

After about 40 minutes of presentations, the city councilors and county commissioners entered a recess and joined small groups of about 10 people distributed throughout the packed town hall to hear questions and concerns first-hand. With only Commissioner Tiffani Landeen absent, the 12 present city councilors and county commissioners spent an hour rotating between the groups, joined by city and county staff who circulated to speak with residents.

“The conversations I heard were very interesting,” city councilor James Oppenheimer said. “It’s very different to sit down one-on-one with people and talk compared to getting emails and hearing people at the dias.”

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