Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken gives State of the City address: Replay

When Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken takes the stage Wednesday morning for the final State of the City address of his first term, it's no surprise that growth will be a topic of conversation.

"It hasn't been all roses with all this growth," said TenHaken in an interview with the Argus Leader earlier this week. "I mean, it's creating challenges and needs in the community."

The speech, which takes place less than a month before voters will head to the polls on April 12 and decide whether to give TenHaken another four years as mayor or to elect either challengers Taneeza Islam or David Zokaites, will also focus on children and youth services.

More: State of the city 2021: Mayor Tenhaken says Sioux Falls has bright future despite pandemic

State of the City to focus on youth services 

"Increasingly, I've seen just the crossover and all those in the city's desire and need to get more involved in youth programming," said TenHaken, who said his speech would be prefaced by a panel of three members of the Mayor's Youth Council.

"We could have had developers on that talk about the housing challenges. We could have had, you know, an economic development panel, talk about the economy," TenHaken said. "We chose to have these kids, you know, which kind of sets the tone for what's important to the administration over the next year. It's these kids, and it's our future."

Growth, development in Sioux Falls 

As he talked about the differences between "healthy" and "unhealthy" growth, TenHaken pointed to Cherapa Place II as an example of creating infill development instead of continuing urban sprawl.

"Even though people say, 'Well, those are luxury condos,' yes, but those are people then that aren't building a $700,000 house out in the 'burbs, and they're choosing downtown living instead," he said. "And so it's helping us control that sprawl a little bit with a certain price point, a certain demographic."

More: Here's everyone running for office in Sioux Falls' April 12 election

TenHaken says city is trying to remain cognizant of rising inflation 

But as he looked toward the next year, he said the city is also trying to remain cognizant of rising inflation and that many people are dealing with "incredible monetary tension" at the moment as they consider any sort of city fees or rate increases.

It's hitting the city, too. TenHaken said groundbreaking on the expansion of the city's wastewater plant has been postponed as "historic price escalations" began piling up.

"We're not ready to break ground yet," TenHaken said, "because we still got a lot of pencil sharpening to do now based on the price escalation we're seeing."

Sioux Falls State of the City to happen before April election

With the April 12 election just around the corner, TenHaken said the prospect of one day no longer serving as mayor "reinforces the importance of setting a vision and setting some priorities that can live on after you're gone."

Still, he said, "You do this job always expecting that you're going to keep continuing. So I fully expect to keep doing this job after April 12."

The speech will take place at 8 a.m. Wednesday, and will be available to view via the City of Sioux Falls' Facebook page.

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the status of the city's wastewater plant expansion.