Sioux Falls Regional Airport to add four-story parking garage

By Andrew Weeks

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. • It’s exciting for Michelle Klobassa to walk through the Sioux Falls Regional Airport and see her design ideas come to life.

Klobassa is a senior architect with TSP Inc., a Sioux Falls-based architecture firm, which over the years has completed several projects at the airport. Its largest is a four-story, 900-plus-stall parking garage currently in the design phase.

Designs for the structure come with the option to include a skywalk from the garage to the terminal, a nice feature that airport visitors would likely appreciate, especially during the cold months. But with an approximate $5 million added to the cost of the $37 million project, that decision will come during the bid process sometime next year.

“We’re going to take that all the way through the bidding phase and then they’ll kind of make the decision from there,” Klobassa said. “I think in the big picture, from a customer standpoint and a passenger standpoint, everybody would really like to see that skywalk built.”

What is for sure is that the first level of the garage will be for shortterm parking, and the upper three stories for long-term parking. There also will be a number of electric vehicle charging stations. The garage will have a roof, so even the vehicles that are parked on the top floor will be protected from the elements — another boon for travelers returning to their cars in wintry weather.

TSP has partnered with KLJ, which serves as the civil engineer and project manager on the garage, and Kimley Horn, the structural engineer of the project.

After bidding next year, construction will begin sometime in 2023.

“With the airport, the biggest challenge is always figuring out ways to build buildings or do renovations, whatever it is we’re doing out there, and keep passengers flowing through,” Klobassa said. “Airports are open every day. They don’t close.”

As for rewards of the project: “I love to travel, so it’s always fun when I get to go through the airport myself and see the fruits of my labor, so to speak,” she said.

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