Downtown Sioux Falls property owners brace for tax hike as group makes case for need

Revenue pays for downtown revitalization, upkeep, programming

Patrons of downtown Sioux Falls look at public art at the corner Phillips Avenue and 10th Street while Martin Dill, an ambassador with Downtown Sioux Falls, Inc., cleans a nearby mess.     

A special tax on downtown Sioux Falls property owners might soon be on the rise.

But backers of the pending hike on the annual assessment placed on private properties in the city’s core say it’s necessary to keep up with the social ills that come with an increasingly urban environment like that in downtown Sioux Falls.

Downtown Sioux Falls, Inc. (DTSF) this month will ask the Sioux Falls City Council to get behind a proposal to get rid of a decades-old cap on the amount of revenue it can collect on parcels within the boundaries of what’s known as the Main Street Business Improvement District (BID). 

Right now, the most a property valued at $1 million or higher has to pay is $1,700 annually for the special assessment. Those revenues help DTSF cover the cost of augmenting city services specific to the downtown area, like sidewalk sweeping, flowers and landscaping, hospitality and homeless outreach, graffiti and sticker removal, banners, snow removal and holiday decorating.