Train traffic to pick up with rail yard redevelopment

When the walls start to rattle, it means half off beers at Fernson on 8th.

The downtown Sioux Falls tap room sits a few yards from the railroad tracks, and its owners want to make passing trains a part of the experience.

The drink specials might come more often as a major rail yard redevelopment project gets underway.

After years of negotiations and a $27 million land deal last year with BNSF, the city of Sioux Falls is ready to redevelop 10 acres of rail yard property. The project will leave fewer lines running through downtown, but city officials say traffic on the remaining tracks will pick up as a result.

Omaha firm to guide rail yard project

“Instead of these long unit trains coming into town, you’ll see more frequent but shorter trains that are being delivered and picked up from customers,” said Josh Peterson, project manager for the city. “We’re not impacting the volume at all, just the size and frequency of the trains.”

For years the downtown rail yard has been used to store and interchange rail cars for BNSF and Ellis and Eastern Railroad. Once those lines come out, those operations will take place along Rice Street, where new siding tracks are being built this summer.

Next, BNSF will turn its attention to a downtown connection track that needs to be relocated. Once that happens, the defunct rail yard will be prepped for redevelopment with site cleanup, track removal and the removal of an existing freight building. The new train schedules will start at that point as well.

For Fernson, more train traffic won’t have much impact, other than possibly giving out more discounted beer.

“So we do the train game,” said Mitch Torbert, beer tender at Fernson’s. “It’s a good way to get people to celebrate the train. If traffic really goes crazy, maybe we’ll have to put some hour constraints on it, but we’ll see.”

The city envisions a live, work, play-type development with retail, restaurants and residential going up in the rail yard’s place. While the presence of train traffic might be a factor in what types of projects take place there, officials aren’t worried the redevelopment won’t reach its potential because of it.

“There certainly is concern for potential residents to live right next to a rail line, but it just kind of becomes background noise in a way,” said Joe Batcheller, executive director of Downtown Sioux Falls, Inc. “It might not sound very reassuring. It will have an impact to a degree, but after a while it all becomes relative.”

Consultant search, new lines part of rail yard progress

Councilor Michelle Erpenbach, who represents the central part of the city and the downtown rail yard neighborhood, said train noise is already an issue, but that hasn’t stopped new businesses and residences from popping up there.

“You can seal those apartments up,” she said. “It would be an interesting place to have at least some apartments, some residential. It’s that whole urban vibe.”

Whether or not train noise becomes a hurdle in the redevelopment process, establishing quiet zones that allow trains to cross intersections without blowing their horns could be pursued. But that involves red tape and millions of dollars to construct physical barriers to keep pedestrians and automobiles off the tracks when trains are near.

Expensive or not, Erpenbach said quiet zones should be part of the long term plan for downtown and beyond.

“I’d like to see it start downtown and let’s move throughout the core area so fewer and fewer people have to deal with that sound,” she said. “It’s part of being a modern community. There’s no reason we can’t do that stuff, but with patience because it’s going to take some time to get that done.”

Important Project Milestones:

2001: Feasibility study is complete.

2002: Conceptual phasing plan is developed.

2005: Congress appropriates $40 million.

September 2013: Environmental Assessment is complete.

December 2014: Independent appraisal work is complete.

July 2015: Purchase agreement is reached.

August 31, 2015: Purchase agreement is signed.

November 2, 2015: City closes on property.

Spring 2016: BNSF begins constructing new siding tracks.

June 21: City announces selection of RDG Planning and Design to lead conceptual design