Summit Arena is near completion
RAPID CITY, S.D. — It’s been a little more than a year and a half since ground was broken on Rapid City’s Summit Arena at the Monument. Now with just a couple months of work remaining, NewsCenter1 had the chance to look inside.
Right now, at the arena construction, crews are at the final push for the finish line to get things done in the next two months. In about a month, the Monument staff will start to come in to train their staff and get everything set up for the first events.
A lot of milestones have been hit by all the craft workers on site. The arena floor being poured was a big one. Other milestones include the roof and the enclosure system that are now complete, the seats are now installed, the mechanical units have been started up and there’s power throughout the building. The lights are starting to come on.
“We’ve had crews working through the 100 plus degree heat in the past couple of weeks,” says Andrew Corson, senior project manager for Mortenson/Scull Construction. “Big shout out to them. Working in the building in the last few months, it has gotten hotter. The buildings gotten enclosed, it has not been easy, so they’ve kind of gotten to push through it and make sure we were hitting all those milestones.
Corson says at this point, it’s a lot of final finishes and a lot of testing. Crews expect to start testing out the fire alarm system in a couple of weeks, which will be the next big milestone to get the building signed off and turned over.
The Summit Arena will also be a fully ADA compliant facility. Whatever price-point you were looking for, whatever you’re looking for in a facility, you’ll be able to get an ADA compliant seat in that location.
Management at the monument is also looking to add a seven-figure item to the Summit and is asking Rapid City for loan to offset the initial cost.
The original design had end court scoreboards in mind which were incorporated in the $130m estimate, but some events and productions utilize a center hanging score board, so the Monument is asking the city for help to help with the $1m price tag.
“When you think of Rodeo Rapid City, you know any major rodeo that you go to whether that be the N.F.R in Las Vegas or even the one.. the P.B.R. that they do in Sioux Falls that’s something they use the center hung for,” says Priscilla Dominguez, the Monument director of corporate sales and marketing. “The center hung adds just that extra right above the ring, just that extra jazz to make the event a better event for everyone.”
Dominguez says the hanging scoreboard, paired with the ribbon board around the arena, will open sponsorship opportunities. The Monument plans to use the revenue generated from these sponsorships to pay back city for the loan.
The first look inside the completed Summit arena will come in October. The Black Hills Pow-Wow, which will probably be the first event, is aiming for their 35th year to be the largest in the nation.
It was announced on Monday that Chris Young will be headlining a concert in the Summit on Nov. 4. Tickets to see the country music star go on sale Friday, Aug. 20 at 10:00 a.m. Managers say they’re not sure that Chris Young will be the first big name headliner to play the new arena as planning and booking is still underway.
“When we think about opening, we feel really fortunate that the entertainment industry is starting to recover from COVID,” says Dominguez. “We saw Lollapalooza go off this weekend and we see that Cheyenne Frontier Days had a phenomenal lineup and a lot of those shows that were cancelled 2020 indoors are getting rescheduled for ’21, so we haven’t come out with the heavy hitters. We’re still working on it and we’re thinking it’s going to be a great fall and an even better spring.”
Also coming up in the fall, four-time Grammy Award winning duo, For King and Country.
