Simplified: Fewer cars and more family-friendly events meant more money for downtown businesses last summer. That's the main takeaway from Downtown Sioux Falls, Inc.'s Open Streets pilot project, in which Friday evening street closures brought tens of thousands of people to downtown.
Why it matters
- In past years, Downtown Sioux Falls hosted block parties with live music, beer tents and food trucks. But since the opening of the Levitt, which also provides free music throughout the summer, downtown's main advocacy organization decided to pivot to Open Streets.
- Each Open Streets event brought vendors, performers, artists and other community partners together to shut down a couple of blocks of Phillips Avenue for a few hours. Downtown Sioux Falls, Inc. CEO Brandon Hanson said he heard from multiple businesses that they saw their highest sales days coincide with these events.
- Last year, downtown hosted four Open Streets events coinciding with other "first friday" festivities downtown. In total, those events brought 55,000 people to downtown and had an economic impact of at least $2 million, Hanson said. And the hope is to keep the momentum going in 2026.
"The door’s open, and hopefully we’ll see more people jump on the opportunity to shut down the street a little bit and provide programming activation to downtown," Hanson told City Council members Tuesday afternoon.
Tell me more
Each Open Streets event cost about $6,000 to run, Hanson said. The 2025 Open Streets events were funded through a one-time grant from the AARP, but even without that continued grant funding, downtown has already secured sponsors for three of the four planned events in 2026.
Downtown Sioux Falls, Inc. also surveyed people who attended the events, and 80% of people surveyed said they discovered a new business during Open Streets.
"Our businesses saw a huge lift," Hanson said.
Councilor Jennifer Sigette commended Hanson and his team's work on these events, noting that in their first year, Open Streets was named among the top five events in The Local Best.
What happens next?
Four Open Streets events are planned for this upcoming summer. Those dates and themes are:
- May 1 – art and wine walk,
- June 5 – designing downtown,
- July 3 – celebrating America's 250th birthday,
- Aug. 7 – art and wine walk
"I would just encourage everybody who's listening or watching this to put those dates on their calendar for next summer and please attend in downtown," Sigette said.
