Historic Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation depot expands with recent renovation

There’s a symbolism to working out of a historic railroad depot for the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation.

Beginning in the late 1800s, the earlier residents of Sioux Falls would gather at the building along the east bank of the Big Sioux River as trains connected them with mail or telegraphs, and the depot served as a weather station with flags communicating the forecast.

Photos by Emily Spartz Weerheim

“I love that we have this little piece of history around us,” said Mary Kolsrud, chief philanthropy officer. “You look around us, and the skyline is going up, and we’re the same on the facade as we were in 1887.”

Inside, though, some things have changed for The Depot, which now has the address of 200 N. Cherapa Place.

Since moving into the renovated office space in 2013, the foundation’s team and its needs have outgrown the square footage.

As it did historically, The Depot still serves as a community gathering place — in this case, donors and the causes they support, as well as nonprofits in need of places to meet.

“We are busting at the seams. It was very evident we needed more meeting space,” Kolsrud said. “We needed room to bring nonprofits together with community leaders and donors so we could have conversation and spark dialogue, and we just weren’t set up for that. We were having to rent space or go off-site.”

They addressed the gap with an expansion, adding 1,400 square feet and changing the flow of the office. Koch Hazard Architects was the designer, and APX Construction was the general contractor.

The expanded conference space can seat about 20 for a board-style meeting and more in a classroom or presentation setup.

“We want to be more of a convener of the different parties that are trying to do great things for Sioux Falls,” said Andy Patterson, president of the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation.

“As you think about philanthropy, people trust us. They come here because we’re a place that’s respected. We connect people, and we’re still a community gathering place.”

The space also is available for nonprofits to use for free.

“When you’re a small nonprofit … you don’t have room for your board to meet, and that’s an added expense,” Kolsrud said. “So to have a space people can come and use and not charge is really important too.”

There are other spaces for meetings in the building as well, including a conference room that looks out to the Arc of Dreams.

As philanthropists “are dreaming about how we do our part to make Sioux Falls better, it’s a space that allows you to think about what could be,” Kolsrud said.

Additionally, the foundation reconfigured some individual offices to better support its team of 13, with room to grow.

Ten years ago, there were 10 employees, and while charitable assets tripled in that time, “there’s a lot of efficiencies you can get with technology,” Patterson said. “But we’re probably at a spot where the staff needs to grow more.”

Some design changes were made for privacy, while glass walls still create an open feel.

“We wanted to create a beautiful experience for people coming in, so we separated front of house from back of house to create that experience,” Kolsrud said.

The Depot has been investor-owned since 1982 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. Cherapa Place developer Jeff Scherschligt was a key advocate for the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation to purchase the building and move into it, and “we see ourselves as a partner in the whole Cherapa neighborhood,” Patterson said.

There’s also “this great responsibility to uphold the historical significance of the building,” Kolsrud said. “We really tried to maintain that and be good stewards of the building, just as we try to be good stewards of the charitable assets we hold here.”

The Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation has grown from $115 million in net charitable assets in 2015 to $380 million. Some of its more public-facing affiliations include the Sioux Falls Parks Foundation. It also holds the Promising Futures Fund, which supports equity for children in poverty.

Patterson credits increased awareness of the foundation and its resources but also points to large business transitions that have helped fund local philanthropy and an increase in generational wealth transfer. The foundation helps connect donors with a tailored plan for giving to causes they support, largely locally, but the giving can be done anywhere.

“A lot of giving that will happen here is through people’s estates,” Patterson said. “There’s a lot of time between when someone makes a plan and when the gifts are realized, so part of our expansion is an anticipation of what we know is coming and being able to manage that.”

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